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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24619897">Pressed Flowers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness'>Dredfulhapiness</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Love will make the flowers grow [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Iron Dad, M/M, Mentions of Death, Post-Endgame, Pushing Daisies AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:20:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,634</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24619897</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>By the time Tony died, Peter knew the drill: he could revive the dead with a touch, but he could never touch them again. </p><p>He waited for Friday’s pronouncement of death to press a hand against Tony’s neck, fingers turned inward as if searching for a pulse or a sign of movement. </p><p>When Tony (like magic, or a miracle, or the end of a cheesy Christmas movie) jerked to life, Peter flung himself back and acted as surprised as anyone else.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Love will make the flowers grow [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827601</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>190</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>676</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Peter Parker grew up idolizing superheroes. Most kids did. At least, most kids from New York did. There was no avoiding the heroes; they were on juice boxes, and guests on Sesame Street, and they permeated most headlines. At least, they permeated the headlines that Ben and May read to him. The good news-- like robberies stopped, and civilians saved, and keys to the city won.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he was a kid there were the X-Men, and Wolverine, and he sat through his fair share of assemblies about how Captain America went down in a plane during World War II and it saved them. Martyrdom suited him in the 1940s. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He read about Bruce Banner in science classes-- both his research and his transformation. They talked about how something can be one thing, and then become another. Like Oobleck, or The Hulk.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For every historical event, there was a hero. For every epic battle, there was a mutant.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Their stories were always black and white. Nazis and Hydra were bad, Captain America was sent by the United States to kill them, which made him good. Mister Sinister was a villain, which meant that the X-Men were unflawed. It was easy. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter was seven, Tony Stark became Iron Man. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter was twelve, Iron Man saved his life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter was fourteen, he was given the option to be a hero and instead made an irreversible decision. In a single afternoon he learned the consequences of both showboating and lack of personal responsibility. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter had grown up surrounded by heroes and had assumed that it didn’t weigh on you. He watched Iron Man force closed a portal from space, but he never saw the fallout. Instead of learning from his mistakes, scrawny, newly-strong Peter had let a robber go just to win an award for violence. He arrived home with his prize money to find his uncle dead in the kitchen, shirt so damp with blood that Peter wouldn’t realize it had been his green shirt until he tried to borrow it from Ben’s closet nearly a year later. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter also learned a lesson about powers, just not the one he told people who asked. It doubled as a lesson about miracles. It was a lesson about a geas. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Less than a week after Ben’s death, Peter pawned the camera Ben had bought him for Christmas for half of what it was worth. It was a nice one: a refurbished Canon Rebel that Ben had bought Peter specifically for the school paper. He used the money from the camera and his prize money to buy spare parts and a sweatsuit from a shop that only had a horrific mix of blue and red in his size. He made the web solution with materials from Midtown’s science lab. He stored them, originally, in vials he’d bought from the dollar store around halloween. He used pieces from model-building kits, the potato clock he built for the science fair in elementary school, and whatever he could afford from local hardware stores. By Friday, he’d finished the first version of his webslingers. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>On Monday, he jumped off of his first building. It didn’t kill him. It was the first of many victories to come.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter was fifteen, it wasn’t just good guys versus bad guys anymore. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was standing in his bedroom and being propositioned by Tony Stark to fight the very heroes he’d spent his life learning about. Captain America had been more than just textbook pages for years now, but how could Peter separate the man from the legend? It was a fight he had no stake in (except, he had a lot of stake in it. When he thought about it later, he’d consider the repercussions of having to register. He’d see its downsides.), but Tony Stark was standing in his bedroom, annoying Peter with his specific brand of Stark Patronization and how was Peter supposed to say no to that?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter joined the fight. He got a new suit for his troubles. Also, a few bruises-- one on the palm of his hand, where he’d caught a metal arm. One on his clavicle, from none other than the man he’d sat through history lectures about. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter picked a side, but he still wasn’t sure who was right. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When the fight is two idols, it’s harder to paint it in terms of absolutes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter was sixteen, he took down Vulture against the direct orders of the richest man in the country (the world? Did it matter? He was the richest person in Peter’s life). Two months later, he performed another miracle. This time, it was in the middle of the street. Around them, traffic was rapidly growing louder. There was a dented car beside them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first miracle could have been coincidence. The second was evidence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter liked to consider himself a man of science, which really meant nothing in a world where science and magic were just two ends of the same spectrum; Peter was surrounded by aliens and heavy machinery on one side and gods and wizards on the other. Being a man of science meant following the scientific method. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Hypothesis: When Peter touched the dead, they came back to life.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For all intents and purposes, Peter Parker was a normal high schooler. He passed gym class because of participation rather than skill. He got into Midtown High with a handful of scholarships. He fumbled over himself when trying to ask girls out. He went to school dances with his best friend and they snuck out after an hour and a half and shoved themselves into diner booths and blew straw wrappers at each other. He got grounded for things like coming home late, or forgetting to wash the dishes, or nearly burning the apartment down while trying to make ramen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was an orphan, but not in the Batman way. The death of his parents hadn’t been some traumatic turning point in his life, he’d been young. One day he’d had a mother and father, and the next he had May and Ben. A seamless transition. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At least, it had felt like one. He had been too little to recall Ben staring, stone-faced, at photographs of his brother. He didn’t remember May excusing herself from the dinner table to cry in the bedroom. He had no memories of asking where his parents were and being met with a long silence, or a sob, or a pained sigh. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So, for all intents and purposes, Peter Parker was a normal high schooler until his unfortunate trip to the Natural History Museum. He walked into the museum with scratches on his knees from a skateboarding accident, one eye trained across the street at Central Park. It was sunny, and warm, and everyone was in good spirits because they didn’t have to sit through any classes about molecular structures, or </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Things They Carried, </span>
  </em>
  <span>or eat lunch in a crowded, over-heated cafeteria. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Their backpacks were on the bus, they all had a clipboard to take notes, and Peter had a good feeling about the day. He was going to ask Liz out on the bus ride back. He had a whole plan-- a playlist, and an offer to see the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hunger Games </span>
  </em>
  <span>movie that was coming out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This was going to be a good day, yessiree. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of course, he couldn’t have seen the incoming spider-bite. He couldn’t have foreseen the lump that would grow on his hand, or the way the wounds on his knees would scab over overnight, or the nausea that would send him home early from the field trip. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he couldn’t have foreseen the rest of it, either. All the death and destruction he’d leave in his own wake. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he first got his powers, Peter’s knee jerk reaction had been showmanship.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d come home triumphant. There was a check stuffed in his pocket for two thousand dollars. His sweatsuit was rolled up in his backpack, and he whistled as he walked down the hallway, the swing in his step bouncier with each door he passed. This would make a great dinner conversation, how he’d been in the ring with Bone Saw and </span>
  <em>
    <span>won. </span>
  </em>
  <span>How he’d won thousands of dollars that could go toward rent, or his education at Midtown, or even his college fund. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d have to tell them about the powers, but he’d have to tell them eventually anyway. Especially if he was going to make a career out of… whatever this was. Talk shows, maybe. Or a parkour youtube channel. He could sell ad revenue-- he could probably get more subscribers than Dude Perfect, and keeping it a secret from Ben and May wasn’t sustainable. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was sure they’d be excited about it. Maybe not so much the powers, but definitely the opportunities. Ben would probably be thrilled about the sudden athletic ability. They’d learned at a young age that sports were hardly Peter’s venue, and instead they’d decided to invest the money they’d spend on rec center soccer or football on math camp and science experiments he could do at home. Instead of huddles and gatorade, his childhood had been full of baking soda volcanoes and geology kits.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter turned the doorknob to their apartment, in high spirits, it was locked. If May was home, the door was never locked. He tried again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When she called out, from the other side of the door, “Peter, honey, don’t come in here!” his blood ran cold. Something twisted in his gut. May sounded panicked, and out of breath. The hair on the back of Peter’s neck stood up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“May?” He called out. He fished around in his pocket for his key. “You okay?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just stay outside, please, Peter!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter’s hands were trembling so bad it took several tries to get his key into the hole. When he finally did, he rammed the door open and nearly barreled into May. She was standing frozen in the middle of the living room, mouth agape, face pale, staring into the kitchen. He followed her gaze.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His uncle Ben was sprawled out on the tile, half-propped up against the counter. One hand cradled his chest, where blood seeped through his fingers. Bile rose in Peter’s throat. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beside him, May’s hands trembled as she fumbled with her phone. She pecked at the numbers on the screen with her index finger. When Peter stepped forward, she reached a hand out to stop and pull him back, but she missed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ben?” Peter said, searching his face for any sign of life. Even in the orange light of sunset, Ben looked pale. Peter pressed two fingers to the base of his neck. The skin was cold and clammy. Peter pushed for a pulse. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Ben gasped in a breath, Peter nearly screamed. As it was, he fell back, one hand against the linoleum to keep him from totally losing his balance. Peter watched him bring his blood-covered hand up to look at it. He looked past it, at Peter, a dazed expression on his face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pete?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And </span>
  <em>
    <span>May </span>
  </em>
  <span>screamed at that. “He’s alive!” She told the nine-one-one operator. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How are you--” Peter’s gaze fell to the shirt Ben’s blood had dyed red. “Who-- Who did this?” He forced out. “What happened?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You and May are okay?”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“We’re </span>
  </em>
  <span>fine,” Peter said. “But you--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t even hurt.” Ben pulled himself up to a sitting position. Then, as if realizing what he’d said, he repeated softer, “It doesn’t even hurt.” He ran his hand over the wound.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey!” Peter scolded. “Don’t mess with it! You’re probably just in shock.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You need to apply pressure to it,” May said. She still sounded lightheaded. Her knuckles were white around her phone. She stumbled over to where Peter and Ben were. “They said you have to apply pressure to it. It stops the bleeding.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked around, then snatched a dish towel off of the counter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re alright, honey,” May assured. She dropped her phone onto the floor, into blood. She didn’t seem to notice, not even when she kneeled beside Ben and it spread onto the knee of her jeans. She put a hand on his shoulder. “There’s an ambulance on its way-- just hang in there.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ben placed his hand over Peter’s, smiled at him warmly, as if he weren’t bleeding out onto the kitchen floor. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then he died. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ben had been alive, and then he was dead. A seamless transition.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>May let out a guttural scream when he fell forward, doubled over onto linoleum and her sneakers. Above them, one of the overhead lights flickered. Downstairs, somebody dropped something and cursed. The Parker’s apartment was silent.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The EMTs found them holding Ben’s face, as if waiting for his eyes to open again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When an officer assured May, “We’ve got him cornered in that warehouse on Parson’s Boulevard.” Peter already knew what he needed to do.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked between them-- May with her bloody-kneed jeans and pale face, and the EMT’s loading the rest of their stuff up. Ben was downstairs, shoved in a body bag in the ambulance. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How do you know it’s him?” He asked, eyes wild. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The officer regarded him-- the blood on Peter’s hands, the way his feet aimed out, like he was ready to run.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Security footage,” he said uneasily. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter waited for them to clear out of the building to sneak out through the fire escape.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The night was significantly colder than the day. Wind cut at Peter’s face. He had goggles, and a scarf, to protect his identity, but it didn’t do much to keep the preeze off of his forehead. He barely felt it, though. Rage had warmed his bones.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He snuck in through a roof entrance. The door groaned when he pushed it open. It echoed around the bones of the building-- crooked and sagging and dark. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Who’s there?!” Whoever had been camping out whirled around. He followed the path of the ladder up to find Peter staring down at him. The light was behind him. Encased in shadow, Peter leapt to the ground.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s you,” Peter said when the light from the moon brought the burglar’s face into focus. He recognized the glint in his eyes, the uneven eyebrows, the knock-off designer hoodie. It was the man Peter had let go at the wrestling show. The one Peter had dismissed as </span>
  <em>
    <span>not his problem </span>
  </em>
  <span>as he headed out into the ring to make money.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Who the hell are you?” The man asked, lips pulled back in a sneer. Like an animal cornered. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was a gun sticking out of his pocket. It was the gun he’d killed Ben with. Bile rose in Peter’s throat, hot and acidic. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t even close to a fair fight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter left him webbed up on the side of the warehouse. That was his way of showing restraint. It was also, accidentally, his way of sending a message. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>New York had a new hero in town.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Before midnight, the first article about Spider-Man had been published. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Experiment.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t something Peter had meant to look into. It wasn’t even something that Peter had considered a topic of interest. It had never occurred to him that his touch had brought Ben back to life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That is, until it happened again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man had been hit by a car when trying to cross the street. The driver hadn’t been paying attention-- he’d been speeding and texting simultaneously. The squeal of tires and the sickening thud of a body against the ground had pulled Peter’s attention.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man was sprawled out, arms bent at nauseating angles. He was staring, unblinking, at the overcast sky. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fuck!” The driver was yelling, standing behind the protective shield of his open car door, staring at the mess he made. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What did you </span>
  <em>
    <span>do?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Peter’s presence must have startled him. He shrieked. Peter ran up to the man.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t suited up. Spider-Man wasn’t a regular gig yet-- especially not with all of the backlash he was getting from Jameson. This was a bad week, one of the ones where the public was erring on the side that Spider-Man was everything wrong with society. As if a teenage boy’s urge to do good was some kind of allegorical symbol of the dangers of vigilantism. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I-I didn’t see him. He was in the road-- he came-- he was in the road. I didn’t see him,” the man stuttered out like a broken record. He still clutched his phone in his hands, though, the text chat messages visible. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Shit,</span>
  </em>
  <span> man,” Peter yelled over his shoulder. He rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie. “Call 911! Be fucking useful!” He didn’t see if the man complied, he was too busy holding his hand over the injured man’s mouth to feel if he was breathing. His hand grazed his nose. The man took in a wretched breath. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter leaned back on his heels and stared in awe. Something itched in the back of his brain, like deja vu. He pushed it down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sir, don’t move--” he warned as the man moved to sit up. “You’re hurt, you shouldn’t move until the ambulance gets here. Do you have anyone you want me to call? I- I have my phone if you know their number.” He fumbled in his own pocket. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You saved me,” the man said instead of answering Peter’s question. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, I didn’t,” Peter said. “You were just unconscious. Is there anyone I can call--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It was you,” the man repeated. He reached out and wrapped his hand around the wrist that held Peter’s phone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That was his final breath. So it goes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter stayed until the ambulance arrived. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Collect data.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It didn’t take too long to catch on after that. A bus accident left three dead, but two of them walked off the scene as if nothing had happened. A cat that had been struck by lightning limped its way home and Peter ignored the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pet Sematary </span>
  </em>
  <span>vibe. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was one man Peter had almost saved. He found him in an alleyway, hand clutched to his chest, a wallet lay open beside him. There were pictures in it-- of children, of a dog. A wedding. An entire life shoved into leather folds.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter had snuck down the stretch between buildings to get changed. Instead, he found a corpse.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There were no signs of injury. There was no blood. The man had been alive, and then he’d been lying in an alley between a restaurant and a comic book store. His skin was still warm when Peter pressed a hand to his cheek. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sir?” he asked, and when the man inhaled, Peter scrambled back, well out of arm's reach. “Are you okay?” he asked. His backpack pressed against a dumpster. His shoes scrambled on loose trash. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man blinked. His hands moved, gripped for purchase on the slick ground. It had rained the night before, and New York was still damp with it. She’d taken the rain in like a flowerpot, held onto it for days. The man sat up, eyes wide and blinking, one hand moving to rub the back of his head, presumably where he’d hit it when he’d fallen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He looked over at Peter, and there was a flash of recognition in his face. And then, all at once, it faded. He was looking at a stranger. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What…?” The man looked around, trying to remember how he had gotten where he was. People rarely remembered how they died, and they never remembered that they had.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think you passed out,” Peter said. “I found you on the ground. You were out cold.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man pulled himself to his feet. His legs were shaky. His hands trembled. He looked dazed, like a deer that had just gotten out of the headlights, or like a zombie. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I-- I think I should go to the doctor’s?” The man said (asked). “If-- If I’m just passing out?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s a good idea,” Peter agreed. “You should do that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” The man said, “for waking me.” Peter nodded, watched as he walked off, still looking zoned out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Just as he stepped onto the sidewalk, Peter remembered the wallet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh! You dropped this!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was Peter’s fault. He hadn’t thought before holding it out to the man. He hadn’t thought until their hands brushed during the exchange, when the man’s eyes widened suddenly, and his knees buckled, and Peter’s jaw dropped into a startled cry. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Analyze data.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Reviving people was like pressing flowers into books. Their beauty and liveliness wasn’t compromised, but they could be so easily broken. A pressed, dried flower can crumble with just a touch. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter didn’t try to revive people after that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony was his final exception.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Conclusion.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>By the time Tony died, Peter knew the drill: he could revive the dead with a touch, but he could never touch them again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He waited for Friday’s pronouncement of death to press a hand against Tony’s neck, fingers turned inward as if searching for a pulse or a sign of movement. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Tony (like magic, or a miracle, or the end of a cheesy Christmas movie) jerked to life, Peter flung himself back and acted as surprised as anyone else. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He put space between him and Tony, nearly three feet. He let Rhodey and Pepper crowd him, their hands on his face and in his hair and pressed against the front of his suit as they murmured, grateful, and asked Friday for information on his vital signs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When it was Peter’s turn to welcome him back, he stood far enough away that only Tony’s armored hand could reach him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck was that, Mr. Stark?” he asked (and the tears were real, even though he knew what had happened). </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony put a hand on his bicep, smiled with teeth. The crows feet at the corners of his eyes deepened. His shoulders rose with the motion of his breathing. Even through his suit, Peter could feel the heat radiating off of the armor. Tony had just let off enough energy to restore the universe-- it was enough to burn up half of his face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We did it again, Pete,” Tony said. Peter wasn’t sure if he meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>won </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>cheated death. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Instead, he just let his head drop. Peter gulped in a breath of relief, his shoulders shuddered. The temperature of the air around him was cooling down. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, we did. Less dying next time, though. Okay?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Tony laughed, it sounded like it hurt. He had no idea Peter had just pressed his life into a book.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*cracks knuckles* I've officially started my next big fic... I wrote a LOT for this today, so chapter 2 should be posted next week.</p><p>If you want, feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr @dredfulhapiness I love talking head canons. I'm also always taking fic recs!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>In the end, everyone decided it was the stones. Maybe Tony had thought, for once, about self preservation when he snapped. Maybe the universe had favored him. Maybe Iron Man had always been stronger than he thought. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Either way, no one wanted to be the one to look the gift horse in the mouth. Tony Stark had died, legally. Friday’s record told them that. His heart had stopped beating, his brain had stopped functioning. Then it had all started again, the well-oiled machine of a 55 year old body up and running like it had never shut down (save for, of course, the burn marks that pervaded the right side of his body, and the arm that had needed to be amputated).</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce carried him off the battlefield, and after a decent amount of physical therapy and the construction of a metal arm, it was like Tony Stark had never died at all. The scars ran up his neck in a web of veins. Pepper told him it made him look rugged. Morgan liked to trace them with washable markers. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first part of the rules were easy: revive the dead with a touch.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The second part was much harder. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He snuck into Tony’s hospital room through the window.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Believe it or not, the front desk will let you up.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was still in the hospital after the blip. The small remainder of his arm was bandaged. The burns moved in waves across the side of his face, like a bolt of lightning, or a field of energy. When he smirked at Peter, he tried to hide the wince that came along with it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Peter said, pulling his mask off. He sat on the window sill, his back against the propped-open glass of the window. “Yeah, I know. But I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop in.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Actually, he’d snuck in because it was nearly impossible to enter through the door without being within arms reach of Tony. If Peter misstepped, or moved his arm too far to the right…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Plus, it’s less suspicious if Spider-Man shows up and sneaks out the window than if your intern does it. Are you gonna finish that pudding?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony handed it over. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How are you feeling? They still got you hooked up to drugs?” Peter swung his legs. He dug the spoon into the pudding. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not enough,” Tony said. “I can actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel </span>
  </em>
  <span>the burns now.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s what you get for tryna be a hero.” Peter shrugged, tried to seem nonchalant. Tony’s lips twitched.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s good to have you back, kid,” Tony said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(It wasn’t the first time he’d told him that. He’d also said it as they carried him off the ruins of the Avenger’s compound, Peter’s arms braced under his shoulders, Steve’s arms under his knees. He’d looked up at Peter, upside down, and stared, as if in awe, at the mask. It was dulled with debris. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m glad you’re back,” Tony had told him, so raw and honest that Peter felt it in the back of his throat. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Let’s get you to a doctor,” Peter had responded.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This time, Peter said, “Pepper’s planning a party.” He ate another spoonful of pudding. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“For little ol’ me? Of course she is.” Tony grimaced as he reached forward to grab his phone. Peter moved it just out of reach.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t hear it from me,” He warned. “And it’s not just for you-- it’s for all the Avengers.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s disappointing,” Tony mused. Peter raised an eyebrow at him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You want a whole party dedicated in your favor?” He challenged. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Really? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Because I can arrange it. They have these Iron Man string lights at 5 Below, and I think I saw a pinata with your face on it, which would make for a really fun theme. Oh, I think you also have zoo pals. You remember zoo pals? They have them for the Avengers, but I can just buy a bunch and pick out the rest that aren’t you. Plus, like, napkins, and--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay, fine. I won’t tell Pepper that I know.” He crossed his working arm over his chest, then looked down and frowned. Peter put Tony’s phone back on the table. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not a surprise party,” Peter said. “She just knows you’d bitch at her.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Language,” Tony warned, voice faux-stern.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, Cap.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They both smiled. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So what’s it like out there?” Tony asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I saw a rat the size of a small dog,” Peter said. “Just chillin’ on the sidewalk.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m serious,” Tony said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So am I.” Peter pulled one leg under the other. “It’s crowded,” he said. “Even for New York. A lot of people were displaced when they came back, so the city’s struggling to, y’know, find everyone someplace to live. I thought you could probably stick people in Stark Tower, but it’s owned by some company now? Oscorp?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Rising tech company,” Tony said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A lot has happened, huh?” Peter asked. The city hadn’t exactly transformed. It was still New York: a living, breathing city of motion. The people in it were still jerks, the pavement was still hot and cracked, the subway stations still smelled like piss. Peter still loved it so much it hurt. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But now the buildings had different names. Now his apartment belonged to a family with the surname Campos. Stark Towers belonged to Oscorp Industries, and there were memorials all along the sides of roads for the places people had disappeared from existence. They’d come back standing on flowers and crosses and stuffed animals.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No more than usual,” Tony responded, and Peter hadn’t expected him to look so </span>
  <em>
    <span>sad. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He opened his mouth to ask about it-- to ask why Tony had been so willing to die for them all, to ask why he’d been so willing to leave Peter and everyone else behind.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Someone knocked on the door. Peter pulled his mask on instead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Come in!” Tony called.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Heeeey,” Pepper poked her head around the door. “How are you feeling?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beside her, holding her hand, was a child. She came up to Pepper’s hip. Her dark hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and it was clear she’d dressed herself-- a rainbow-striped shirt and neon yellow pants. Her gaze started on her father, face twisted into the kind of concern only children could manage, a concern marred by confusion. And then she saw Peter, and the expression shifted to awe.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mommy!” she shouted, tugging on Pepper’s hand. “It’s Spider-Man!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He waved. Under the mask, Peter smiled. “Hi,” he said. “You must be Morgan!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She had to have been. There was a determined glint in her eyes that could have only come from Pepper. She held her shoulders high, she gazed upward with wonder and determination, and Peter’s chest burned with love.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You look exactly like your pictures,” Morgan told him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He hasn’t aged a day,” Tony agreed, and Peter wondered if it was guilt that thickened his voice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll let you guys visit,” Peter said. He looked at Tony. “I’ll see you later?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to go,” Pepper said. “It’s nice to see you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter waved his hand. “I was just stopping in for a few minutes,” he assured. “Duty calls. It was nice meeting you, Morgan!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Bye, Spider-Man!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Later, Peter would consider that there was no way Morgan could have known about Spider-Man. She was too young to have seen him on the news, which meant that Tony had told her about him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There were no Iron Man string lights at the party. Despite Peter’s pleas, Pepper had refrained from buying any Avengers-themed party supplies. Apparently, it was tacky. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Later, Peter heard Pepper telling May that Nat was never on any of the party plates or napkins.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“This is a party for her, too,” Pepper said, “even if she’s not here.”)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter held his glass in one hand, and straightened his tie with the other. It was starting to get warm, and while the lakehouse had a gorgeous view, this was no weather for an outdoor black tie event.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Black tie was an exaggeration-- It was a mostly-black tie with the rolling script from the beginning of A New Hope printed on it. It was the only tie he could find in the unpacked boxes of their things. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not many other people were dressed formally, either. Sports coats, and jeans, and tennis shoes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter had done the rounds of the people who had already arrived-- Captain America, and Rhodey, and the Hulked-out Bruce Banner. Clint was down by the lake teaching his kids how to fish. May was talking to Tony and Steve, grinning. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter sipped at his drink.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Want another?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The voice came from behind him. Peter turned his head, expecting to see Tony, or Bucky-- instead, he was looking at a stranger. He was around Peter’s age, a little bit taller. A cell phone hung precariously out of the inside pocket of his coat. His hair curled, just-barely-controlled, away from his scalp. He held two flutes of champagne, one offered out to Peter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter glanced down at his own drink. He hadn’t realized he’d nearly finished it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” he said. “Thank you.” He held out a hand. “I’m Peter.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Harley.” He put one of the glasses under his arm and took Peter’s hand. “You a friend of someone’s?” Harley let his gaze fall back into the throngs of the party.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>More people had shown up since Peter had turned to talk to Harley. On the long driveway, Carol was running up to Nick Fury, arms outstretched. He fought the hug at first, went stiff-- and then he hugged her back. They pulled apart, and there was the shadow of a smile on his face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam was deep in conversation with Pepper. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then Tony looked up and saw them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was moving better nowadays. The burn marks on his face had faded mostly to scars. The bionic arm he’d made was only noticeable where his sleeves didn’t cover-- the red and gold glinting in the sunlight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He still looked sad most of the time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he saw Harley, though, his face broke into a wide grin. He didn’t even bother to excuse himself from the conversation he was in, just broke away from the group and made his way over to them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Same as you,” Peter said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As Tony neared, Peter took a cautious step back. No one seemed to notice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You made it,” Tony said. “I’m surprised.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t really trust the news when it comes to you,” Harley said. “I had to come see for myself.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley stepped forward to meet him. He held a hand out. Tony clasped it, and then pulled him in the rest of the way for a hug. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I thought you’d be halfway to Oscorp by now,” Tony laughed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you kidding? Norman gives me the creeps. How ya doin’, old man?” Harley asked as they pulled apart. He was a few inches taller than Tony, and when he looked at him it looked like he was sizing him up. Not for a fight; there was nothing malicious about the way he looked at Tony, but it was like he was searching for something. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I feel like I just saved the universe,” Tony said, even as he ran a hand over where Harley’s had pressed into his injured shoulder. He glanced over Harley’s shoulder. “You met Peter?”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Barely,” Harley said. He turned his attention back to Peter. He winked. Peter’s stomach somersaulted on its own accord. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s Stark’s best intern,” Tony said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Was,” Peter corrected. “I’m sure someone filled my position in the interim.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And by interim he meant: being out of time. Being dead. Or, rather, being nonexistent. Dust on a foreign planet. But he tried not to think about that too much. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony awarded him with a biting glare. “Let me introduce you,” Tony said, putting a hand on Harley’s bicep. “Pete, you wanna?” He motioned back toward the picnic tables with his head. Peter held up a hand. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m gonna find something to eat,” he said. “I’ll find you later.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter snuck into the kitchen and took a deep breath. It was quiet inside. It was nice enough out for the crowds to stay out of the living room, and Morgan was upstairs taking a nap, and Peter could </span>
  <em>
    <span>breathe </span>
  </em>
  <span>in here. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t been around a Tony who could move freely yet. All the other times Peter had seen him since bringing him back to life, he’d been contained to a hospital bed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It felt like a minefield. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Queens.” Peter whirled around. Captain America was staring right at him, smiling. Peter blinked. “How ya holdin’ up?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter offered a weak thumbs up, held up the mini quiche he’d snuck off a plate. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fantastic,” Peter said. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Hangin’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>in there. Heh. Get it?” Steve didn’t laugh. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I just wanted to let you know that if you’re having trouble adjusting--” He held out a small piece of paper for Peter to take. Later, Peter would laugh at the fact that Captain America has business cards. “You can call me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I-- wow,” Peter said, because he was holding Captain America’s personal phone number in his hand and that was dope. “That’s really kind, thank you,” he managed instead of his internal monologue </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh my god oh my god oh my god captain america’s phone number i have captain america’s phone number holy fucking shit. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He met Harley again when Morgan was trying to teach him how to hula hoop. Peter watched him struggle overdramatically, the beads in the hula hoop like a rain stick. Morgan giggled as it slipped off his hips. Peter took another sip of his soda. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’d like to see you do better,” Harley said when Peter snorted at his failure.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not sure that’s a bet you want to take,” Peter said. “It’s one of my many talents.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can’t say it’s one we share,” Harley said. Morgan wandered back out into the crowd. Peter tossed Harley a soda. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They talked for the rest of the night. Peter caught on, quickly, that Harley dropped unnecessary nouns in the interest of time-- </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span>s and </span>
  <em>
    <span>My</span>
  </em>
  <span>s and </span>
  <em>
    <span>You</span>
  </em>
  <span>s fell off the beginnings of sentences. His tongue hooked on words like </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hot </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>water. </span>
  </em>
  <span>When Harley couldn’t think of a word he traced the shape of the object into the air. When he saw Tony, his expression softened even as he bit out a cutting remark. It was a love language of its own.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter also learned that he hadn’t been snapped. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It was a long five years,” Harley said, one elbow on the table between them. “I’m just glad…” he spared a glance at Tony. “Everything worked out.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d wanted to say something else. Peter didn’t press.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Peter said, “Me too.” Then, “It must have been rough.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No rougher than it was for anyone else,” Harley said with a wave of his hand. Dismissing. “One day at a time.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it felt insincere-- not the sentiment, the way Harley said it. The way he cast his eyes downward as he dismissed his own emotions. The way he seemed to say it to himself, like a mantra. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter opened his mouth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter Parker!” Someone dropped their hand onto his shoulder. Peter looked up, eyebrows knit together. “Good to see ya, kid!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Carol’s face was flushed red. She laughed around her words. It was different than the self-assured smirk she’d given him in the ruins of the compound. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Captain Marvel,” Peter croaked out, because </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh my god she remembered his name, </span>
  </em>
  <span>“How are you?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She didn’t seem to hear the question. She pulled Peter closer to her with the arm around his shoulder, pointed dramatically at his head with the other. “Have you ever seen this kid in action?” she asked Harley. “He does cool flips, and shit. Thanos never stood a chance!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uh--” Peter started. “I don’t know what you’re--” but she’d already looked up, past both of them, and waved to Wanda. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey!!” She called out, and then she was gone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She must be confused,” Peter offered weakly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can I guess?” Harley asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter sighed, then nodded. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Daredevil?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He shook his head. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Deadpool?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Who?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Spider-Man?” Peter pressed his lips together. Harley’s eyes sparkled. “Can I see your tech? And also maybe some flips and shit?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter wore his suit whenever he could. He used excuses like </span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, I just finished stopping a robbery </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone stole my clothes while I was out </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m on call with the police right now </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>the computer in it is faster than my phone. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first time, Tony reluctantly accepted the lie. He offered Peter a t-shirt and jeans to wear home. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The second time, he told Peter he needed to start keeping his clothes and backpack up high. They don’t exactly grow on trees. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The third time, he looked concerned. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know you can wear clothes in my house, right?” he asked, frowning. “It’s just us here, and Morgan doesn’t know you’re…” he motioned to Peter, suited up on his porch. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s a long story,” Peter said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Tony didn’t say anything, but Peter saw the way he grit his teeth. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At least, with the suit, Peter was able to hug him before he left.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tennessee summers were more humid than Peter had expected. He wiped sweat off of his brow as he and Harley worked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You should install air conditioning,” he said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley looked up and mumbled something intelligible. For a moment, he looked startled by Peter’s presence. As if he’d forgotten Peter had been there with him for a day and a half. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He got like that, sometimes. His brain ended up in a different world while he worked. He’d hum to himself, ask questions to dead air, tug at his hair when it started to fall into his eyes. Sometimes he stuck a cigarette between his lips and forgot to light it. He’d go through the trouble of packing the tobacco down and bringing it to his mouth, only to be struck with an idea, or distracted by a discarded tool, or get shocked by whatever he was working on without gloves or goggles and be pulled away from the moment until the cigarette had become too soggy to catch. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not so bad,” he said when Peter’s words finally registered. If he was lying, he was bad at it. If he was telling the truth, Peter wanted to have him tested for some kind of heat resistance. There was a sheen on his forehead, too. His hair looked damp and greasy. He’d tied his flannel around his waist and had a bottle of water sweating at his feet. “You should come visit in August.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think I </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to,” Peter admitted. It was June, and he was already spending his days sweating and his evening swatting at mosquitoes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Well, his weekends, anyway. He spent a lot of his time lately jumping from New York and Tennessee. Tony found it hard to argue against Peter’s absence when his excuse was working with Harley. It was easier for Peter to avoid contact when he was nearly 1000 miles south. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He felt bad about avoiding Tony. He thought Tony might be catching on to Peter’s unskilled dodging of calls and denying plans. Tony offered Peter to come work on the spider-suit, and Peter lied about sleeping over Ned’s house. He invited Peter camping, and Peter said he needed to work on his suit with Harley. Tony offered to give Peter a ride down to Tennessee (“I’ve been meaning to check up on Harley, anyway. Make sure he isn’t turning into a supervillain under my nose.”) and Peter said he was meaning to practice driving, anyway, but thanks for the offer. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This was one of those weekends. Tony had offered to fly down with Peter-- private jet and all that-- but Peter had said he was working on lessening his carbon footprint and don’t you know that private jets are terrible for the environment and Doctor Strange was the most environmentally efficient mode of travel Peter could think of and he’s rambling again isn’t he?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley had already gone back to Peter’s suit. Peter chewed on the inside of his cheek. He hadn’t had much to do in two hours except watch Harley work, his hands splayed on either side of the suit for long periods of time until a realization hit him and he’d grab one tool or another. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It left Peter alone with his thoughts. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Let’s take a break,” Peter said, waving his hand in the space between Harley and the suit. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley looked up at him, eyes already partially-glassed-over with concentration. “Huh?” He asked. “I was going to--” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We should get out,” Peter said. “Eat something.” He grabbed the tools that were spread out in front of Harley and started throwing them into their respective drawers and jars. “The suit will be fine.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley made a funny face: some mixture of confusion and annoyance. He didn’t stop Peter from cleaning up, though, just watched him in silence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you have any fields around here?” Peter asked. He threw his suit into his backpack. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fields?” Harley raised an eyebrow. He was digging his box of cigarettes out of his pocket. Peter plucked it from his hands without a word.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah-- you guys have stars out here. I want to look at them.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s going on with you?” Harley reached out to grab the box back. Peter pulled it away deftly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I want to look at the sky,” Peter said. “That’s all.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They went and looked at the sky. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know any constellations?” Peter asked. They were laying in the bed of Harley’s truck, using their sweatshirts as pillows. From the tree line, Peter could hear the occasional chirp of a bird up late, or the crunch of leaves and twigs underfoot. The earth was alive around him, from the earthy smell of grass to the incessant chirp of crickets. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A few,” Harley said. His shoulder pressed firm against Peter’s. When he pulled his arm up to point, he tugged the fabric of Peter’s shirt up with it. “That’s Hercules. The box with lines coming off of it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter followed his finger with his gaze. He searched the sky for where Harley was pointing. If there was a shape there, he couldn’t make it out. The powerpoints in school had always made finding constellations seem so clear-cut. You’d look up and mentally connect the dots and you’d be eye to eye with Cassiopeia. But in reality, he was making eye contact with billions of lights in the process of dying; the night sky was more abundant and deadly than Peter could have ever imagined. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley was still talking. “—Draco,” he said, his finger having moved from one point in the air to another. “It’s circumpolar, so it’s in the sky all year.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Circumpolar,” Peter tested how the word felt on his tongue. It came out like a rhythm. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It circles Polaris,” Harley said, moving his hand over the slightest bit. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The North Star,” Peter said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s always in the same place in our sky. The Earth is tilted toward it. All of the constellations that surround it stay up, too. Like the Little Dipper.” He traced the shape. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter couldn’t tell the difference between Polaris and any other star in the sky. He was staring at a graveyard without names; billions of unmarked heat deaths. Matter could neither be created nor destroyed— every star had been something else first. Every star would be something new one day. Harley kept talking. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“—Aquila. It looks like a paper airplane, a little bit. It’s supposed to be an Eagle.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Spend a lot of time stargazing?” Peter asked, struggling to keep his voice level. There was a lump growing in his throat, but he wasn’t sure why. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to be an astronaut for a few years,” Harley explained. “I borrowed a bunch of books from the library.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“About constellations?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And NASA, and rockets, and planets.” Lines showed up on Harley’s face when he smiled. Deep divets at the sides of his eyes, creases where his lips met his cheek. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Was this before or after you found out aliens were real?” Peter had given up on pretending to follow Harley’s hand as it traced invisible lines in the sky. He looked at Harley’s profile, instead, as he stared, enraptured, at the universe above them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>“It overlapped,” Harley said. “Mostly it was just because I watched a lot of Firefly</span> <span>as a kid.”</span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Firefly?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Peter snorted. The muscles in Harley’s face jumped, but he didn’t laugh. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wanted Nathan Fillion to be my dad,” Harley said, like that was a normal thing to say. Maybe it was. Maybe Peter hadn’t spent </span>
  <em>
    <span>enough </span>
  </em>
  <span>time searching for his father in TV personalities. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He was hardly the most fatherly one on that show.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Harley agreed. “But he </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>captain.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter hummed. With the light from the cabin in the truck, Peter could see the glow of a tan on Harley’s cheeks. He could also see the red tinging it-- sunburn. Harley’s eyes scanned, moving from left to right, searching the quadrants for more constellations. Somewhere nearby, a cicada screeched. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Right in front of Peter’s eyes, something was dying and creating something new.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What was it like?” Harley asked after a long silence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter licked his lips, and turned his gaze back up. “Cold,” he said. “Quiet.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He thought about the cavernous spaceship. There had been three of them there, and yet it had felt endless. There had been an echo, yet it had felt as vacuous as space. Peter could have yelled, and no one would have heard him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We were on a planet when Thanos showed up. With Quill and one of the guys from his crew. When he got away it was so… quiet.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Even with the yelling. Even with people yelling at Strange. Even with the silent, bristling anger aimed at Quill. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Quiet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A firefly lit up in Peter’s peripheral vision. He couldn’t bring himself to look at it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d always liked space-- always liked the idea of exploring it. Of course he did, he and Ben built watching </span>
  <em>
    <span>Star Wars </span>
  </em>
  <span>into their Christmas tradition. His stocking had been Yoda for years. He’d had glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling back in the old apartment, before he’d woken up and found that it belonged to someone else now. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Actually exploring space was different than he’d imagined. Or, at least, dying on a strange planet was different than he’d imagined. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The worst part, by far, had been waking up alone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d faded away in Tony’s arms, one hand flexing uselessly at where the collar of Tony’s shirt would be, the other clutching at Tony’s arm. He was surrounded by desert-like dust, and a Mars-like atmosphere, and he felt every atom as it pulled away from him. Except, it didn’t hurt. It felt like pins and needles, or being light-headed, or inhaling too much helium from birthday balloons. It felt weightless, except Tony was holding him in place. Grounding him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then Peter opened his eyes and Tony wasn’t there. There wasn’t even any trace of him-- no footprints, or suit, or note. Just endless, sunrise-tinted sky. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He came back into being, and Peter remembered everything he had ever loved: May, and s’mores, and pictures on the mantle, and Ned’s smile, and the way MJ’s nose crinkled when she was trying not to laugh at a joke. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I know, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and jokes that made him laugh so hard milk came out of his nose, and how little kids waved at him from the sidewalk when he swung by.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then, just as quickly, Peter remembered everything that had ever hurt: dodgeballs to the back of the head, and the time Ben accidentally dropped him when he was learning to swing across the monkey bars, and black eyes, and the first fathers day he had no one to address a card to, and the realization that he was alone on a cold, distant planet with no one to tell him </span>
  <em>
    <span>trust me, Pete. I got you. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was only a few seconds, maybe less, before Strange told him that he’d lost five years and the universe </span>
  <em>
    <span>still </span>
  </em>
  <span>needed him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Would you go back?” Harley asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter took a breath in with his nose, let it out with his mouth. The summer air was sweet and thick. “Yeah,” he confessed. “I think so.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure you’re ready?” May asked. “We could wait a semester.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They both stared at the mammoth of Midtown. Kids were filing in the front door. The crowd looked denser than it ever had before. They were occupying at capacity and a half. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My other option is sitting around doing nothing,” Peter said. And moping. There would probably be a lot of moping if he didn’t have school to focus on. Harley was spending a few nights a week up in New York now, and Peter had lost the escape of Tennessee. “This will be good.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’ll call me if you need me?” May had a hand on his knee. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Peter nodded.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” he said, even if it was only half true.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he got inside, the first thing he did was hug Ned and be grateful, not for the first time since returning, that they had all been snapped together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter’s head was the first thing to slam into the ground. The impact was heat followed by a deadly cold.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For a few heartbeats, Peter couldn’t move. The air left his lungs. The sound around him was a dull whir, the clash of weapons and the collisions of bodies into walls sounded instead like distant cannons, or the space between radio stations. Below him, the ground felt like it was shifting. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The pain washed over him all at once. Heat in his shin, a pounding in his ears. Below his mask, he could feel where blood was coming from where the insert made to protect his face had lacerated his cheek. He reached up with shaky hands and pulled it off. He couldn’t hold back the groan that came from his lips when it pulled the hurt skin along with it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He forced in a breath.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” he muttered to himself. He tried to push himself up to a sitting position, but his leg screamed. Even out of focus, he could tell that his shin was bent in half, and he gagged. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Around him, people were still fighting. The noise was slowly coming back into focus. A low hum, like an air conditioner. Like a motor. Like an engine someone was yelling to be heard over. Like a--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter!” He heard Tony’s voice in surround sound. Peter opened his eyes. Above him was a blur of Mustang red and gold. His eyes wouldn’t focus. “Pete-- hey. You okay?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony took his helmet off. Or, at least, Peter was pretty sure he did. One second there was a metal monster standing over him, the next there was a face close to his own. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“‘M fine,” Peter said, but it came out as more of a low moan. He felt like a grenade had gone off inside his brain. “‘Tis but a scratch.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And that, at least, must have been comprehensible because,</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What did we say about pop culture references during fights?” Tony asked. “Besides, that’s more than a scratch.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Gently, he placed a hand on Peter’s leg. Peter whined, high-pitched and keening. Tony withdrew quickly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did you hit your head?” Tony asked. Peter gargled some kind of response. He felt like there were marbles in his mouth. Also in his brain. And maybe a few in his nose. His bones were marbles. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He felt a jolt up his back. A warning. He forced himself to pay attention. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony was reaching out, his hands suddenly bare and ready to cup Peter’s face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No!” Peter cried out, and he could feel the word slur in his mouth. “Don’t-- don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me!” He yanked his head back, abrupt. He could feel the white-hot pain in his neck. The world around him went black for a second. When it came back, Tony looked hurt, eyebrows drawn together, lips turned down. He’d leaned back, away from Peter, arms uselessly in front of himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Tony said, and he sounded defeated. “Okay, I- I won’t--” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something exploded behind him. The sound rattled Peter’s skull. He brought a hand up to cradle his upturned ear. Tony whipped his head around. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Go help,” Peter ordered, voice shallow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?” Tony said, as if he hadn’t heard.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Go help them,” Peter said. “I’m fine. Go help.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We need to get you out of here,” Tony argued. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll stay down,” Peter said (not that he had much of a choice with his leg and the way the world was tilting around him). Tony was less blurry than he had been seconds ago. Peter could make out the calculating expression on his face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Was he thinking about Germany? How he’d forced a hard limit onto Peter? How he’d needed to blackmail him to keep him from endangering himself?) </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’ll stay down?” Tony double-checked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have much choice,” Peter promised. “Go.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony did. The rest of the battle was a blur. It was Thor that pried him off of the ground.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter dreamed of a staff meeting in one of the conference rooms in old Stark Towers. He was seated at the end of the table, beside Tony. Fireflies drifted around their heads.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The table went on for miles-- the Avengers, students from Midtown, the people down the street who ran the sandwich shop with a signed picture of Tony Stark, May, Happy, Harley, anyone Peter had ever met at Stark Industries, every MIT student who had received a grant. Peter had never met them, never seen their faces, but he knew them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the very far end of the table, clearly visible despite the distance, was Morgan and Pepper. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony was speaking. Peter couldn’t make out any of the words. He could have sworn he was speaking English, but Peter couldn’t put the sounds together in coherence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everyone watched him intently, heads nodding in sync to a rhythm Peter could feel in the wood on the table. It was a shifting bass, buried deep in the heart of the room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A spaceship drifted by the window, something horrible and monstrous grinned at him. He wore Peter’s suit. Peter blinked, and he was Ben with the same jarring, twisted smile. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony spoke with his hands. Wide, erratic, gesticulating motions that had air caressing Peter’s cheek. Peter wanted to pull away, but he couldn’t move. He was rooted to the spot as Tony talked, and everyone watched, and alien ships kept passing by the window, and Tony was closer than he had been before. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“--Peter?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter blinked. Turned his head. For a moment, he was sitting beside the man from the alleyway, with bloodshot eyes and red marks on his fingers where Peter’s had brushed his one-- and then it was Tony again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?” Peter asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I said: what do you think?” And Peter felt sluggish. Blinking felt like it took hours.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sounds good,” he forced out. He managed a weak grin. He wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Let’s shake on it, then,” Tony said, already holding a hand out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uh,” Peter said. He stared at it. His expensive watch glinted. “That’s not necessary.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not polite to back out of a business agreement, Queens,” Steve Rogers said, his voice monotone. For a few frames of a second, he was in his Captain America getup, and then he was back to a dress shirt and khakis. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not backing out,” Peter said. “I just don’t think we should shake hands.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s how you make a deal, man,” Harley said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The ceiling above Harley was a galaxy. There were stars above him, billions, that were disappearing at a rapid rate. Space becomes nothing. Matter was being destroyed without any ceremony.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He slid a textbook towards Peter. Peter couldn’t quite make out the words on the cover, but when he touched it he knew it was a business textbook. He opened it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Pressed into the pages was a black windflower. A few of the petals were missing. Peter’s mouth went dry. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Come on, Peter,” May said, “We’re waiting on you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked at the flower, then at Tony’s outstretched hand. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” he croaked out. He clasped his hand in Tony’s. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony stiffened with a sharp inhale. His eyes widened, pupils shrinking. His lips parted, pained. Pepper gasped. Someone whined.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked, just as the particles drifted over Tony’s shoulder. They were dark, grouped tightly together. They floated upward, into nothingness, shrinking in density. Pieces of him-- all of his atoms separating from his body, into nothingness, and then he was gone. Dust in the wind. Matter was destroyed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everyone was staring at Peter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What did you </span>
  <em>
    <span>do?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Morgan demanded. She was leaning over the long expanse of table. “You killed him!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Peter said, staring at the empty space where Tony had been sitting. “I know.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony was half asleep when Peter woke up. Half of the lights were turned off in the emergency-room cubicle. On the other side of the curtain, Peter could hear the beep of machines and the roll of wheels on vinyl tiles, and somewhere someone was coughing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter jolted up. Tony followed suit, hands clutching at the arms of the poorly-padded wooden chair. His head jerked, shot to where Peter was slowly piecing together the scene in front of him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was in a hospital. There was an IV hooked up to his arm. There was a cast on his leg. He stared at it, willed it to go away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter opened his mouth, and something pulled in his cheeks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re up,” Tony said. “With the medicine they said you might be out for a while.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Head hurts,” Peter managed to force out. He brought a hand up to his cheek. There was a cloth bandage over the swollen flesh. “That’s gonna scar.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’ve gotten lucky so far,” Tony said. “Maybe not.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter let his head fall back against the pillow while he struggled to recollect his thoughts. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It took a few moments for him to remember everything-- the men they’d been fighting with modded alien tech, the way it seemed to explode on impact when it came into contact with Peter’s leg, the way he’d seen Bucky’s cyborg arm blown to bits. In the wrong hands, alien tech was some rough stuff. In the right hands, it could be even worse. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“‘S May here?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She’s getting coffee from the cafeteria,” Tony said. “She should be back soon.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mmm…” Peter mumbled wistfully, “Coffee.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I don’t think so, Underoos. You need to sleep for a while.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What time is it?” Peter patted where his pockets normally were. He found, instead, a hospital gown. His phone was nowhere to be found. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Almost one.” Then, before Peter could say anything, “You’re not going to school tomorrow.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I have a test,” Peter said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And you think you’re gonna pass it like this?” Tony raised an eyebrow. “You can make it up.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” Peter said, not much fight left in him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony moved his hand, brought it up to Peter’s bicep. For a moment, it looked like he was going to touch him. Peter winced away. Tony let his arm fall back to his side. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony took in a deep breath. “Kid, what happened out there--” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mr. Stark, I don’t want to--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“-- You went through a lot,” Tony continued, sounding just as uncomfortable as he looked, “In space. And coming back the way you did. If you ever need to talk to someone--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t need to--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“-- I’m here. Or we could find you a professional, if you’d be more comfortable with that. I just know that--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not about--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“-- it can be rough. Seeing the things you’ve seen. There’s no shame in getting help if you need it. And if something’s wrong, you should tell some--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They only had decaf.” May stood in the doorway, making a disgusted face. “Can you believe that? It’s the graveyard shift and they only have </span>
  <em>
    <span>decaf?” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Saved by the bell. “Hey, May,” Peter said, and he ignored the way his cheek burned when he smiled at her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How many hospital visits is that this year?” May asked, and then her smile glitched. “Well, </span>
  <em>
    <span>our </span>
  </em>
  <span>year,” she corrected, because time is wibbly-wobbly and subjective when it hasn’t affected you in five years. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“At least a dozen,” Peter said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’re gonna need to start having you on retainer,” May told Tony. She was taking this better than he was. She held out one of the paper to-go cups for him. Tony shook his head.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He was actually just getting ready to leave,” Peter said, and he forced himself to keep his resolve calm when both of them turned their heads to stare at him. He kept his eyes trained on May, desperate to avoid the expression on Tony’s face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t planning on it,” Tony said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’ve got Morgan and Pepper at home,” Peter said. “And it’s a long drive-- we’ll be fine.” And he forced himself to look, at least, at the wall right beside Tony’s head. “There’s nothing you can really do here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And even without looking directly at him, Peter saw Tony cringe.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It took a week for his leg to heal, which was longer than usual. The next time he saw Tony was sans cast.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I had to split this chapter in half because chapter 2 was nearing 10k and I was excited to post this. I haven't changed the number of chapters yet, because I haven't decided whether I'm combining the 2nd half of chapter 2 with the final chapter or not. </p><p>As always, feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr @dredfulhapiness ! My asks are always open for questions, comments, concerns, head canons, or just to chat.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“You’re avoiding Tony,” Harley said as soon as Peter stepped through the door. Peter glanced at him, then back down at his phone. </p><p>“I just saw him two days ago,” he said with an indignant laugh. “I went over to celebrate Morgan’s first day of school.”</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“You’re avoiding Tony,” Harley said as soon as Peter stepped through the door. Peter glanced at him, then back down at his phone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I just saw him two days ago,” he said with an indignant laugh. “I went over to celebrate Morgan’s first day of school.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why?” Harley asked. His arms were crossed over his chest, biceps pulling at the sleeves of his t-shirt-- and Peter quickly moved his gaze to Harley’s face. He was frowning at Peter, disapproving-like, and Peter squinted at him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Because she started Kindergarten?” He dug around in his bag. “This is for you, by the way.” He held out the drawing that Morgan had given him for Harley. It was mostly scribbles-- bright colors and the occasional star or smiley face. There was a cat in there somewhere, too, Peter thought. She’d written Harley’s name in large, uneven scrawl across the top.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, why are you avoiding him?” Harley said, like it was obvious what he’d meant. (it was).</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter kept rummaging around in his backpack. “I just told you I’m not. You got a fridge to hang this on?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pete, will you look at me?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter stared at him point-blank. The lighting made Harley look older than he was; it pulled the shadows down around his eyes, sunk in his cheeks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was right. Peter was avoiding Tony. For weeks, he’d tip-toed around being alone with him. He excused himself to help Pepper with the dishes, or he let Morgan drag him into the living room to play dolls.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter didn’t want to Talk About It. He didn’t have an excuse to give that wouldn’t hurt Tony. Peter had seen the way he’d flinched in the emergency room, knew that his words had cut deeper than just an end to the conversation. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He knew Tony would bring it up if he got Peter alone. He didn’t have anything to say about it. (Except </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m sorry </span>
  </em>
  <span>but even that would be a confession, wouldn’t it? And Peter found those to be gateway drugs). </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What am I supposed to be looking at?” Peter bit.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley dropped it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My mom’s making dinner tonight,” he said instead. “She’s excited to see you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So quickly, they’d cleared the air. Nothing hung over them. Peter relaxed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She’s home?” Peter asked, surprised. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In all the times he’d been to Tennessee, he’d only met Mrs. Keener a few times, and never at length. It was usually passing each other on the way to the bathroom, or being up when she got home from work, or when she would wander in, exhausted, say a pleasant hello, and then go to bed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She got the night off.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Peter said. “That’s great!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>May would like Mrs. Keener (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Please, Peter, just call me Pat</span>
  </em>
  <span>). That was Peter’s first real impression. When Peter reached to help her grab something from the top shelf, she smacked his hand away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sit down,” she told him, “you’re company.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mrs. Keener,” Peter started, she leveled her gaze, “Pat-- I practically lived here this summer. Let me help.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She pointed to the seat behind him. “I said sit down, Peter.” Her face was stern-- all hard lines and frowns-- but her eyes glinted with something that could only be love. Peter complied. “Harley, honey,” she said, “can you grab me that bowl off the top shelf?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter laughed along with her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley’s sister got home and they ate dinner together, seated around the table, passing around corn and ham, and laughing at embarrassing stories from when Harley was a kid. Mrs. Keener let Peter help do the dishes, but only because he followed Harley into the kitchen before she could stop him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Let Sally help you, Harley,” Pat said, and Peter made an elaborate show of not letting her in the doorway </span>
  <em>
    <span>wow it’s so weird we keep stepping in the same direction… we’re so in sync it’s like you’ll never get in the kitchen… maybe you should just let Harley and I handle the dishes, then. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>While they washed and dried the dishes, Sally broke out the board games, and as they settled around the coffee table Peter learned that Harley always chose the green game pieces. Then, while they played, that he broke his arm falling out of a tree when he was thirteen, and that he was the one his family called when they needed someone to kill spiders (and Harley looked at him when they said that, with a goofy smile on his face, and Peter’s chest fluttered). As a kid, Harley had a dog that ran away. He preferred coffee over tea, but couldn’t drink it black (his go-to starbucks order was a caramel macchiato with extra syrup, Sally told Peter with a smile). He graduated third in his class. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Despite how he acted around Tony and Peter, Harley was surprisingly humble. Inside his workshop he ran circles around Peter, but sitting in the living room he was quick to deny any accusations of intelligence: it was all </span>
  <em>
    <span>our high school is really small, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s not actually that difficult of a school to get into, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Oscorp is reaching out to everyone they can find. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As if Georgia Tech didn’t have a 23% acceptance rate, or as if prominent tech industries just offered positions to any formally uneducated engineers. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was a sore winner, though. He kicked Peter’s ass at </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sorry! </span>
  </em>
  <span>and didn’t let him forget it for the rest of the night. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley would reach behind Peter to grab his water glass and the inside of his arm would brush the back of Peter’s neck. He’d reach across the table to move his piece and his elbow would press into Peter’s forearm. The remnants of summer heat were still lingering, but the windows were open and it smelled like freshly cut grass, and Harley was laughing at something his mother said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And, somehow, The dickish way Harley reminded him of his game loss was intimate. The way he stuck his tongue out as he sent Peter’s pawn back to the home space. The way he shouldered his sister when she paid him back in kind, ostensibly on Peter’s side. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter loved it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He also felt like he was missing something.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter, you can talk to me.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter bounced his knee up and down. The carpet below him was just a thin layer of woven fibres stretched above solid concrete. He felt it as the heel of his foot slammed down rhythmically. On the other side of the door, a janitor wheeled a cart by. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In the cramped office, the hum of the light was deafening. There was a leak somewhere in the ceiling, Peter could hear it </span>
  <em>
    <span>drip drip drip </span>
  </em>
  <span>onto one of the many wooden surfaces in the room. The whole office was the size of a closet (it probably had </span>
  <em>
    <span>been </span>
  </em>
  <span>a closet), but it was a jungle of stacked-up bookshelves and chairs with broken wheels, and a desk cluttered with photographs and an ancient desktop computer that housed a quarter of an inch of dust. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter?” The guidance counsellor looked at him from over her clipboard. Her pen had a floral design on it. She pressed it to her lips, more performative than anything, and Peter was suddenly sure that this room had been a closet up until Midtown had decided that they should at least pretend to care about the mental health of its blipped students. Or maybe it had been transformed before everyone came back, when everyone was scrambling to figure out what had happened in the first place. He supposed it didn’t matter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Now, instead of brooms and buckets it housed someone trying her best to do good as she ensured </span>
  <em>
    <span>please, just call me Sue, I want you to feel comfortable here</span>
  </em>
  <span> and if Peter had respect for anyone it was people who just wanted to do right.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what I’m here to talk about,” he said instead of voicing any of that. None of that was her fault, anyway. He was just in a bad mood.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Some of your classmates have expressed concern,” she said, leaning forward a little bit. There was a dark stain on one of the ceiling tiles. “They said you haven’t been yourself lately. Do you know where they’d get that idea?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter bit at the skin on the inside of his thumbnail. He could think of a few reasons: he’d been sleeping in class, late to turning work in, anxious to </span>
  <em>
    <span>leave. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He did the work. Eventually. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He just wasn’t sleeping well. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Who said that?” Peter asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “We don’t want people to be afraid to come forward.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Right,” Peter said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How have you been handling coming back?” she asked, trying a new tactic. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter shrugged. “Same as everyone,” he said, and he felt like Harley at the party, </span>
  <em>
    <span>no rougher than it was for anyone else. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“There’s good days and bad days.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you saying that because that’s what you think I want to hear?” She asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And, well, </span>
  <em>
    <span>yeah. </span>
  </em>
  <span>What else was Peter supposed to say? That for three (eight) years he’d been moonlighting as a spider-powered vigilante who once fought Captain America and also got his homecoming date’s father arrested in the same year?  That he had regular nightmares about waking up in the cold expanse of space? That if he so much as bumped into his mentor he could kill him? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That he had it under control? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was working on that last part. He’d started working alongside Tony again, but only with bodies in between them. Harley, or Morgan, or sometimes Rhodey there to keep space between the two of them. If Tony noticed, he didn’t say anything. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was on better terms with Steve than he’d expected to be after the Germany business. He’d taken advantage of having his phone number to send Cap some memes he’d found (they’d gone mostly unappreciated, but they were solid, minion-clad evidence that there were no hard feelings).</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He tried to call Liz, but her old number belonged to some elderly man named Barney who just wanted someone to talk to him. Peter called him every Wednesday evening.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And the nightmares… They were hardly new. Just… more vivid than before. More shifting and sharp-edged. Filled with gardens that smelled of decay, and cities burnt to the ground, and Serenity, and dust. So much dust that it filled his lungs and drowned him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He woke, often, with pins and needles over his entire body. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he couldn’t say any of that to the school counsellor. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, ma’am,” he said. “I got lucky. My aunt and I both blipped together.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That doesn’t mean it’s not hard on you,” Sue said. When Peter didn’t respond, she asked, “is it just you and your aunt?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter opened his mouth, then closed it again. The answer was </span>
  <em>
    <span>well, yes, but actually no.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It was just him and May in the apartment, the same as it had been since Ben died. But there was also Ned, and MJ. And Harley, the newly-minted member of their family. Then there was Happy, and Pepper, and Morgan…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, ma’am,” he said. “We’ve got some family floating around that weren’t snapped.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And how is that? Are they handling your return well?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Peter </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>think about Thanksgiving. He didn’t think about how Tony had moved to put a hand around his shoulder, and how Peter had ducked under his arm with some lie about the biscuits burning; Tony had noticed, of course. He’d played it off by shoving his hand into his pocket. No one else seemed to notice, either, when Peter placed his plate at a seat far down and opposite Tony’s-- but Peter saw the way Tony’s eyebrows drew together, like he was trying to solve a puzzle, or figure out how to comfort a baby. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, they’re handling it great,” Peter said. “They’re glad to have us back.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t a sustainable lie. Especially not to himself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But it worked on the guidance counsellor. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I just wanted to check in,” she told him as his hand landed on the door knob. “And, Peter-- remember that your friend only said something because they were concerned. Don’t get upset at them.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter managed a tight-lipped smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter slunk back into the classroom, Flash ducked his head.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re throwing it wrong.” Harley nearly lost his balance as he spun around to face Peter. He threw his arms behind him, like the circle of metal wasn’t nearly twice as wide as he was. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How long have you been standing there?” he yelped.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter shrugged. “A few minutes,” he replied. He was on the porch, forearms braced against the railing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“God, you’re quiet.” Harley brought his hands back in front of him. He was holding one of the new shields Tony was working on for Steve. It was just shiny, unpainted metal that Harley had smuggled from the garage. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He and Peter were the only ones here this weekend-- it’s not like he was going to get in trouble. That is, unless Friday ratted them out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Peter had been relieved to learn that Tony and Pepper would be in the city for the weekend. When they’d asked, seriously, if he and Harley would feel comfortable staying by themselves, neither of them had blinked an eye. There were countless things for Harley to play with and build up here, and any weekend Peter didn’t need to spend casually dodging Tony was a relaxing one.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Part of the job,” Peter said with a wave of his hand. Then, again, “You’re throwing it wrong.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So you’ve said.”  Harley turned it over in his hands. There were no straps on it yet-- it was still undergoing stress testing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re putting all movement in your shoulder,” Peter said, hopping the railing. “It should be in your wrist.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Isn’t it a little heavy for that? Wouldn’t that wear down the joints in your wrist?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yours, maybe,” Peter agreed, watching how Harley’s arm muscles strained to hold the shield steady and level with his waist. “But I doubt Cap finds it heavy.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He took it from Harley’s grip. “But it’s, what, ten pounds?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Twelve,” Harley corrected.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alright. Twelve.” Peter tested how it felt to move the shield. Truthfully, he couldn’t tell the difference between ten and twelve pounds. Both of them felt like nothing in his grip, which was a perk of super strength. “You’d have to put a lot of elbow into it, then. Not too much, though, or it won’t fly straight.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So… A frisbee?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but a big, heavy one,” Peter said. “Like-- what were those ones that had all the commercials? I think they were inflatable?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The Hover Disc?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. One of those, but it’s actually--” he cut himself off with a grunt as he threw the shield, “as heavy as it looks.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it certainly carried like it was heavy. Harley watched it scrape the top of Morgan’s clubhouse, the grinding of metal on wood (vibranium on wood, actually, and had Peter’s aim been any lower it would have taken the roof clean off). As it was, it skipped on the impact, slowed, and landed in a pile of leaves near the water.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Great,” Harley said, scowling. “We get it-- you’ve got super strength or whatever.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And you’re just the guy with the boomerang?” Peter teased. “C’mon, I’m sure you can throw it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He jogged down to the water line and brought the shield back. He handed it to Harley. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t throw it,” he said, “But show me how you would.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley stood like a hesitant PE student. He bent his knees, and curled his arm around the shield, and when he mimed the action of throwing his feet stayed planted on the ground. He moved his arm like he was unraveling a hose, his elbow straightening before his wrist, his shoulder flying by the wayside. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Straighten your legs a little bit,” Peter said. “They should be a shoulder’s width apart.” He put a hand on Harley’s shoulder and straightened out his back. He pressed one hand in the crook of his elbow and gently straightened out his arm, turned it so it wrapped around his body rather than inward against his chest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He kept a hand flat between Harley’s shoulder blades. The other tilted him at the hips. “It’s gonna go where you’re looking,” he murmured. “That’s how your shoulders angle. And when you let go, step across yourself--” He tapped Harley’s right foot with his own. “There’s more force behind it that way.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He realized, all at once, how close he had gotten. He could feel the shifting of Harley’s muscles under his shirt as he mimicked the motion. He could hear the way his breath hitched as he brought the shield out on an arc. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter stepped back. “Try it,” he instructed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The shield wobbled in the air, but it didn’t crash and burn entirely. Harley turned back around. Grinning.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That night, Peter dreamt of Ben. He was crouched at the far end of a garden, surrounded by fireflies. Peter couldn’t make out what kind of flowers surrounded them, but they smelled like copper. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing here?” Ben asked. He stood up. There was a watering can at his feet, a reflection of the moon warping through its cycles on the side.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Peter said. “Shouldn’t I be?” He walked over to Ben, who only hummed a response before leaning back over his flowers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What are you growing?” Peter reached forward, but Ben’s voice stopped him before he could press a finger to the petals that arched toward him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter pulled his hand back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something large and humanoid move on the other side of the patch of soil, but when he looked up to focus on it, nothing was there. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Behind him, he could hear something approaching-- it sounded like nothing more than a breeze, but it was growing louder with each breath he took. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he looked behind him, he couldn’t see anything among the endless expanse of sky. The stars and nebulae moved to a beat, steady and sure. A heartbeat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he returned his gaze to the flowers, they were still shifting-- color, shape, size. And, yet, he said, “They’re the flowers May used to grow on the patio. She accidentally let them die after you--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Ben said. “I know about it all.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter heard footsteps to his right. He whipped his head around, but all he could see was dust. The whistling noise was closer, now. He turned his attention back to Ben.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And?” Ben repeated. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you think?” Peter leaned in closer to the flowers. They still smelled like copper, but Peter couldn’t pinpoint where he knew the smell from. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ben sighed. Peter looked up at him, eyebrows knit together. He was standing now, taller than Peter ever remembered him being in life. When Peter stood to match him, his arm brushed the flowers, and he felt the sting of knives. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He looked at his hand-- blood covered it: dark and wet, with stars reflected in it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Matter, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thought, but it was fleeting. The flowers grew where the droplets of blood landed, like they were drinking.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think that you’ve already lost me,” Ben said. “But you don’t have to lose anyone else.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Peter tried, so hard, not to feel betrayed. The sound was louder, now.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” he said. “I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>trying.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ben pressed his lips together. “Oh, Peter,” he said, putting a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “There’s more than one way to lose someone.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then Peter was alone, and the whooshing was growing deafening. He caught the shield just before it collided with the back of his head. When he brought it in front of him, the Iron Man mask stared up at him, corroded and burnt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter held a hand up over his face in a weak attempt to block out the flashpots. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do they really need to take that many pictures?” He asked, in a tone that was supposed to be just loud enough for Tony to hear. Even he heard it, though, when it carried into the mic, through the speakers. The first few rows went quiet. Some of the photographers lowered their cameras.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uh,” Peter said. “Whoops?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony rubbed his beard and ducked his head. Peter was pretty sure he was stifling a laugh. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter waved awkwardly at the crowd. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And, yeah, okay-- he was nervous. It was his first press conference. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(“Why do you need me there?” He’d asked the night before, phone between his shoulder and his ear as he attempted to actually get homework done before it was due. “Not that I don’t want to help--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pepper thinks it’ll boost morale. For people to see you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They see me swinging around every day, Mr. Stark. I saved, like, two kittens from trees today.” Peter dropped his pencil on his desk. He spun his chair around. “Am I gonna have to talk?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A few sentences,” Tony said. “We have cue cards for you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>wrote…?” Peter raised an eyebrow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pepper wrote them.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter sighed, relieved.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everyone in the crowd was loud, and the lights were bright and hot, and he was the only one on the stage in a costume rather than a suit. It shouldn’t have been embarrassing-- no one even knew who he was-- but his face was red, anyway. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was also the first time he’d seen Tony in a while. It was college application season, and Peter was spending the time he wasn’t swinging around or working with Harley on building up his resume. He’d briefly picked model UN back up, and then band, and then someone had tried to blow up an entire leg of the sewer system and he’d missed events for both of them and been kicked off. Then he’d joined the robotics team and gotten booted for missing a competition due to a fight with Scorpion. The same happened with math club, glee club, and debate club. The only thing he had left was Decathalon, and that was because it seemed like Harrington wouldn’t kick him out for </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Not that Peter was complaining.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It didn’t help the way Tony looked at him, though. Like he was hurt. Like </span>
  <em>
    <span>Peter </span>
  </em>
  <span>had hurt him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Accidental avoidance, it seemed, was just as effective as its purposeful counterpart.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter chose to focus on the present. How, even though they were sharing a podium, they were so far apart. They said the lines that were written for them, ensured that the world was in great hands and Earth was, as Tony had so eloquently put it five years prior, closed. Peter read his note cards with the stilted personality of an eighth grader presenting a book report. They stood so the press could ask Tony questions, and people took pictures while they spoke, and they were so close to leaving when someone from the Daily Bugle stepped in front of them, grinning.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can we get a picture of you two together?” She asked, and Peter was momentarily distracted by how red her hair was. How big her grin. The press badge around her neck swung as she motioned for them to step closer together, but Peter could just make out the first name </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mary. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were standing a foot apart, Tony with his hands in his pockets, relaxed. Peter with all of his joints straight and locked. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’ll pass out if you stand like that </span>
  </em>
  <span>he heard his tenth grade English teacher telling him. He tried to readjust to seem at least slightly more relaxed. It didn’t really work.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A journalist put an arm on Peter’s elbow and guided him closer to Tony until their shoulders were touching. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was fine. Peter had his suit on. The contact still sent a jolt up his back, though-- freezing terror that didn’t go away with the guarantee of safety.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Look alive, kid,” Tony muttered, and even as the thrill passed, Peter couldn’t make himself laugh at the irony of that. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>alive. He was standing right beside Peter, expression the tilted, self-righteous smile it always was when he was talking to the press. He looked like an asshole. He looked like an asshole, and Peter was wearing his suit, and his hand brushed Tony’s and he hadn’t died. He was alive. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There’s more than one way to lose someone. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Emboldened, Peter wrapped an arm around Tony’s neck and pulled him in for a sideways hug. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Smile, Mr. Stark,” he said with somewhat of a forced laugh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beside him, Tony stiffened, shocked. Just as soon, he regained himself and smiled at the reporters. Tony was just as quick to wear a mask.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Tony saw Peter’s car pulling up to the lake house, his face split into a grin. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was autumn, and the leaves were turning shades of reds and yellows and oranges around them. The color reflecting off the lake made it look heavenly. The sun would set soon, and there was a breeze, and Tony and Morgan were playing catch on the lawn, both covered in grass stains and dirt. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Grab a glove!” Tony called when Peter stepped out of the car. The gravel crunched beneath Peter’s feet. “They’re in the garage!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hi Peter!” Morgan whirled around to look at him. Her hair was tied up in the messiest ponytail Peter had ever seen. Were they still flyaway hairs when they were most of the hair? She waved to him, her arm moving in a wide arc.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter already felt better.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, kid!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Look, Daddy taught me how to throw!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The baseball was bigger than her fist. She held it with a claw, her face set solid with concentration. She brought the ball behind her head, took a deep breath in, and sent it flying toward Tony.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t a perfect throw. He had to drop down to one knee to catch it. Still rusty with the metal arm, he fumbled on the cradle. It bounced. He cupped it with his other hand. Morgan turned to Peter, her face alight with the colors of late September-- like sepia come to life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did you see that?!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That was awesome, Morgan. Did you just learn that today?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah! Come play with us!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So Peter snuck into the garage and grabbed a baseball glove from a box in the corner. It was surrounded by baseballs and footballs and a mysterious pair of tennis rackets that were falling apart. He could picture Pepper and Tony playing together, before kids-- maybe even before Iron Man. There was probably some excuse, like the exercise helps him sleep, or focus, when the reality was just that he liked spending time with Pepper. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The box itself was tilted, half-perched on the counter, half-about-to-tip. There was resistance when Peter tried to push it back, and the resistance was a photo album shoved between the box and the wall. Peter dislodged it and flipped through the pages. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The pictures went all the way back to Tony’s college days. Pictures of him and Rhodey at University Park, Rhodey face-down on a textbook in what seemed to be a library, Rhodey and Tony with ice cream, Rhodey and Tony and a few other friends in a dining hall. He kept flipping. Pictures of Pepper at parties. A newspaper clipping from when she was assigned CEO of Stark Industries. Pictures of all the Avengers together, pre-split. Them shoved into restaurants, or pictures from newspapers, or photographs from the tower. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There were pictures of Peter, too. Clippings from the article that originally dubbed him </span>
  <em>
    <span>Spider-Man. </span>
  </em>
  <span>A picture of him with the prize-winning check from the wrestling match. Pictures from Harley’s high school graduation, the program carefully pressed between the plastic casing and the page, Harley’s name highlighted. (His family had been snapped, but Tony had gone. Had, apparently, dragged Pepper and Morgan along and cheered when Harley’s name was called. Harley had recalled that at the party with a sad smile.) Wedding photographs. Photos from May’s birthday party. Morgan as a baby, Pepper holding her, Tony playing with her, both frozen mid-toss. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony’s entire life (the parts of it Tony liked to claim) was in this book. Every wedding, friendship, happy moment he’d had was lovingly cradled within the pages. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter imagined a world where the second half of the book was never filled in. A timeline where there was no more Tony Stark to take pictures of, or to stuff pictures into a book.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(when he dreamed about it that night, it would be a world full of mist, and debris, and Peter’s face on billboards. The world would shift around him, but he’d feel dread deep in the depths of his stomach.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter! C’mon!” Morgan calling out to him brought Peter back to earth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Coming!” He put the book back where he’d found it, grabbed a glove, and headed back out to the yard. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The grass crunched beneath him. The last of the summer insects were calling out. Across the lake, someone was taking their boat out for a spin and blaring Jimmy Buffett and Peter nearly missed the ball when Morgan threw it to him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not fair!” He yelled. “I wasn’t looking!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You gotta go gentle on him, Morg,” Tony said, “He never played sports-- he’s not good at this.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter rolled his eyes. He tossed the ball over his shoulder to Tony. When he heard it hit the ground, he winked at Morgan. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hmm?” Peter asked, “What was that?” and he just barely managed to dodge the pinecone Tony flung at his head. Morgan giggled.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were out there for an hour. A breeze rippled the lake. Morgan shoved Peter into a pile of leaves (she was surprisingly compact). The sky turned an orange to rival the trees. Wisps of clouds crossed lazily over the sunset. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a beautiful dusk.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Pepper called them in for dinner, Tony dipped her right in the doorway and kissed her. They broke off in fits of laughter, Pepper’s arm around his shoulders, his hand on the small of her back, Morgan whining </span>
  <em>
    <span>ewwww, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Tony looked happier than Peter had ever seen him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For the first time since they’d defeated Thanos, Peter didn’t feel guilty. He convinced himself, for the span of an evening, that he’d done the right thing. The fragility of Tony’s life was okay so long as he didn’t know about it-- as long as he stayed pressed in the pages of a book.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The easy rhythm of rock and roll pop greeted Peter as he made his way around the back of the house. The door to Harley’s workshop was partially open. He could see Harley’s shadow moving through the crack.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was facing away when Peter entered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you listening to </span>
  <em>
    <span>Grease?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Peter snorted. Harley whirled around, hand pressed to his chest, mouth open in a silent shout. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Summer Nights </span>
  </em>
  <span>faded out behind them. What came out was a startled laugh, though. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why this suit is automatic,” Harley said instead of answering, scarily on beat. “It’s systematic. It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>hydromatic.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>He counted the list off on his fingers. “Why, it could be--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t.” Peter eyed his suit warily. Harley held it up against his body, like he was sizing it up.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Greased Lightnin’.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter put the bag of take-out on the table behind him, far away from where Harley was getting down to the dulcet tones of John Travolta. He struck a pose with each beat. He wore a glove on one hand, grease on the other. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley let the suit fall back to the table. Peter sighed with relief.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He didn’t stop, though. His face was split into a grin. He was in the zone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter watched, in awe, as Harley put on a concert.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He put far too much emphasis on </span>
  <em>
    <span>she’s a real pussy wagon </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Peter snorted as he watched Harley go to town on an air guitar, hair flopping as he headbanged. He pitched in lyrics when he knew them-- mostly just the simple </span>
  <em>
    <span>Greased Lightnin! Go greased lightnin’! </span>
  </em>
  <span>-- and that seemed like enough to satisfy Harley, who knew all of the words anyway, and the sunlight came in the window at just the right angle to make it look like he was glowing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That was the afternoon Peter realized he was in love.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter got the SOS message in the middle of history class. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Guardians brought trouble to Staten Island. Don’t come if you have a test.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter responded, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Do we have to help staten island?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He grabbed the hall pass off of the classroom wall, anyway, and offered up some excuse about needing to go to the bathroom and yeah it </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>an emergency, and slunk out of the room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Stepping out of the classroom into fresh air felt amazing. Putting his suit on felt better. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But fighting-- that felt best. He rounded the corner at the same time thunder crackled above him. This was going to be good.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What are we dealing with?” Peter asked when Karen patched him in to Tony. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Seems like bounty hunters,” Tony said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Cool,” Peter said. “Well, cool enough. Like in Avatar--” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Please don’t compare DJ Missouri to the avatar,” Tony said, and they jumped back into the fight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were in the clear. They </span>
  <em>
    <span>should </span>
  </em>
  <span>have been in the clear. They watched Quill kill the last alien with nothing but the remains of a chair that had been set out by the curb to get tossed. Peter looked out at the remnants of whatever group of intergalactic bounty hunters Quill had dragged back onto Earth. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Done!” He called out. He whirled around, arms up in celebration. “See? That wasn’t so bad.” Purple blood splattered his face, covered the walkman on his hip. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If it wasn’t that bad you wouldn’t have brought them to Earth,” Tony pointed out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We need to talk about that, by the way,” Peter agreed. He was perched on the top of a light pole, watching the others interact from above. “Peter to Peter: you </span>
  <em>
    <span>gotta </span>
  </em>
  <span>stop leading bad guys into our atmosphere. We’ve got a lot going on here as it is.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What? You guys can’t handle a bit of a challenge? I thought you were Earth’s greatest defenders!” Peter envied Quill’s ability to grin his way through every bad situation. Peter was starting to think his headphones were actually just looping positive affirmations into his ears. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not just your time he’s wasting,” Gamora assured. “We should have been halfway across the galaxy by now, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone </span>
  </em>
  <span>had to antagonize.”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You guys haven’t had to work in a while!” Quill defended. “I was warming you up-- UCK.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He should have made a more dramatic noise, Peter thought ironically, when the sword pierced his body. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Gamora gasped out a shocked cry. Tony took out the nearly-fallen foe with a final blast. Quill fell to his knees.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It all happened in a matter of seconds. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>One heartbeat had seen Quill alive and boasting-- the next had found him with blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, hands clutching at the empty space in his abdomen where skin had been. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sword fell to the ground with a clatter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter!” It was Gamora who ran forward first. The others weren’t far behind. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>By the time Tony and Peter made their way over, he was already dead. Peter Quill had been alive and boasting, and then he had been dead. A seamless transition. So it goes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For a long, few moments, everyone was silent. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The wanted poster said ‘dead or alive,’” Rocket said solemnly. It wasn’t a joke. He didn’t pretend that it was one. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I am Groot?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Gamora said, hand spread over Quill’s chest. “That’s not possible.” And her tone was biting. Like Groot had said something that offended her, and he flinched away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony opened his mouth, like he wanted to say something, but he just closed it again. Even Thor was speechless. What was there to say?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The guardians mourned in near silence.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked beside him, at Rocket, and Drax, and Gamora, and Thor, and Groot-- their eyes all wide, shocked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’d just lost their leader. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter closed his eyes and focused on the thrum of the ground below him: subway cars, and foot traffic, sewer systems.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then he looked up, where the moon was still visible in the afternoon sky and where there were stars, even when he couldn’t see them, dying and finding a new purpose-- death a catalyst for an unconsented transformation. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He pictured Tony’s dead body in the wake of battle, dust in the air. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shit,” Peter muttered under his breath. Peter pushed, carefully, past Tony, to kneel beside Quill. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pete,” Tony warned, his voice hoarse. He put a hand in the crook Peter’s elbow, but Peter pulled it away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter brought his hand up, the nanobots moved away, down his wrist. Gritting his teeth, he pressed two fingers against Quill’s pulse point.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Okay I know I posted the first 3 chapters within a week but the next one is going to take Longer, I swear. Thank you for all the sweet comments on this fic, they really made me want to work on it. :) </p><p>As always, feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr @dredfulhapiness ! I'm always down to answer questions, comments, or concerns-- or just to talk headcanons (or literally anything else)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ever since dying, Tony’s dreams were of an orange nothingness. The place feels familiar with its rolling fog and ankle-deep water. There’s no breeze, or heat, and when he moves his hands he doesn’t feel the cool droplets of precipitation on his skin. It’s just calm. A liminality. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t something he thought about while he was awake. Life was the exact opposite, stimulation after stimulation. Heat. Cold. Touch. Pepper put a hand on the small of his back and it grounded him. He could feel the solidity of the kitchen floor beneath his feet. He could hear the gentle whirr of the machinery in his suit. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Quill opened his eyes in the middle of the street, Tony was hit with a wave of Deja Vu so strong it nearly upended him. Peter scrambled backward, and Quill was alive, which meant he had become something he was not. Like a Dream Thing. Like how you dream a block of wood and know it’s meant to be a phone. Like how you see someone breathe air into their lungs after being impaled and know that they’re like you. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Like looking at his protegee and feeling a swarm of bees under his skin and knowing. Knowing. Knowing. And, also, not knowing anything. Like an itch at the back of his mind. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He watched Peter put distance between himself and Quill, and Tony knew-but-not-knew. Like a dream. Like he remembered the liminality.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter didn’t know where he was in the shoddy shell of the new Avengers building. It all smelled like fresh paint and hummed like exposed wiring. To his right were rooms in the process of being finished. To his left were holes where floor-to-ceiling windows still needed to be installed. The sunset looked like a watercolor, or like it could be the cover of a lo-fi album cover. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He could use some lo-fi music about now. Music to walk to a cafe in the rain to. Maybe some dialogue ripped from an old movie. It was calming, and he was so keyed up he felt the sudden urge to run up the wall, up into the deconstructed rafters. He felt like a car on a raceway, drifting around the same bends and accomplishing nothing nothing nothing as he dreaded the moment his tires would give out. Fuck, even his inner monologue was like a podcast playing on 3x speed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter felt Tony approaching before he heard him. Ever since bringing him back, proximity to Tony felt like a bee buzzing in his ear. It didn’t raise the hair on his neck, or send his stomach into knots (or at least, that wasn’t from his senses), It just made him jumpy, made him want to jerk away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>To get ahead of it, he dipped into a room to his right. The door didn’t even get a chance to close before Tony’s hand was on it, holding it open. Peter whirled around to face him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What was that?” Tony’s pupils were small. There was a bruise on his chin in the shape of a pear. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter scrambled away from where Tony was advancing on him. He shoved his uncovered hands in the pockets of his hoodie. The door behind Tony closed with a slow </span>
  <em>
    <span>creeeeeak. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Peter looked between him and the door with wide, nervous eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uhhh,” Peter said. “I don’t know. He’s lucky it wasn’t that bad, I guess.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As if being revived after impalement was luck and not dark magic. Human transmutation. Not for the first time, Peter wondered if he lost parts of his soul when he did this. Would the other shoe drop? Was his geas simply that he could never touch the person again, or was there more? Was he building an army of horcruxes? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He didn’t have time to spiral again, because Tony was too close for comfort. If he moved his hands too aggressively, he could graze Peter’s cheek. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He was </span>
  <em>
    <span>dead.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Tony seemed… maybe angry was the wrong word. Maybe he was just scared, but it was an energy that Peter had never seen him exude. At least, not toward Peter. Manic, almost. His voice was louder than usual. His lips were set deeper than his natural scowl. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe it was because he’d just seen a dead man wake up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Maybe he was just unconscious!” Peter’s voice was octaves higher than normal. Damn his nerves. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony was closing the gap between them. Peter’s back hit the wall. There was nowhere else for him to go. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What did you do?” Tony demanded. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Back up,” Peter said. One hand reached back to grab at a lip in the wall. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Peter, </span>
  </em>
  <span>tell me.” And it wasn’t anger, or terror-- it was consternation. And it was dedicated, at least and in earnest, to Peter’s mortal soul. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stop moving!” Before Peter had finished bringing his hand up, his suit was on. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It worked. Tony froze. He looked at his reflection in the panels of the Iron Spider suit. Peter didn’t budge. His arm separated them, fingers just inches from Tony’s chest, so close to where the arc reactor had once been. Back when it had been science keeping Tony alive and not some intangible magic.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll explain,” Peter said into the sudden, heavy silence. “Just… Go sit over there… please.” He motioned with his head toward a grouping of chairs on the other side of the room. Tony looked at him, then at the chairs, then back to Peter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He nodded, put his hands up in surrender. “Okay.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t until he stood behind a chair and planted his feet that Peter let the suit disappear. (Which, thank god. It was stuffy under there with a hoodie and jeans on). Tony’s fingers wrapped around the back of the chair. Peter tried not to look scared. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can you,” and Tony was struggling to keep his voice calm, “please tell me what’s going on?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The panic in Peter’s voice had only made him more concerned. Boosted the bass. Peter thought about the giant amp in the beginning of Back To the Future. He was decently sure he was about to strum a chord. Send everything around him flying. What else was going to happen? Spider powers were weird, but how do you tell someone you can revive the dead? How do you tell someone you can never touch them again? How do you explain all the terrible ways you had to learn about the powers in the first place?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Peter had won the wrestling match, he’d resigned himself to telling May and Ben. It was a profitable skill without hurting anyone. He could do things like jump from building to building and help people move their furniture without any strain. But this… This was like confessing he’d learned nothing from the opening sequence of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Frozen.</span>
  </em>
  <span> This was murder, once. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And what if Tony blamed him? What if Tony found out that Peter had brought him back and resented him for it? Before he had died, Pepper promised him that he could rest, but Peter had taken that from him. Had ripped it from his cold, dead hands all for the selfish reason of </span>
  <em>
    <span>I can’t lose another one. </span>
  </em>
  <span>After everything Tony had done for him, and the world, and the universe: was that forgivable? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Were his tires about to burst?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t freak out,” Peter said uselessly. Tony shot him a scathing look. “But I can sometimes, uh. Well, you know how when people… have you ever seen that show— it was on ABC, and there were always commercials for it before the Charlie Brown specials. They really freaked me out. Early 2000s television was so weird—“</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter,” Tony warned. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Right. Right. Not the point. Uh.” Peter squared his jaw. He couldn’t even bring himself to open his mouth. His chest was tight. If he passed out, maybe he could avoid the conversation forever. Peter inhaled. And exhaled. And when he opened his mouth, no words came out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony kept staring at him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter tried again. He closed his eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. “ICanBringTheDeadBackToLife.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Inhale again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Added, quickly, “not always— I have to touch them, and I don’t know if there’s a time limit, and I don’t know the rules for healing, and I…” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He opened his eyes. Tony was looking at him with an unreadable expression. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If I touch them again, they die.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then the expression shifted into realization. A blank slate into something familiar and hurt. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It wasn’t the stones,” Tony said. “It wasn’t the stones that brought me back— it was you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter nodded, careful. He wasn’t sure what this reaction was, or what it would lead to. He wasn’t sure how even he felt about it, let alone how Tony was looking at him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t want to lose you,” Peter said, and he hated how his voice trembled. He pictured Tony in the garden from his dreams. The one with the flowers that drank blood and was haunted by all of the people Peter had failed to save. “And— and you have Morgan, and Pepper, and I didn’t want </span>
  <em>
    <span>them </span>
  </em>
  <span>to lose you, so I just… I… please say something.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t…” Tony’s mouth worked. “How long have you been able to…?” He motioned to Peter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Since the bite, I guess.” Peter swallowed. “When we found my uncle dead, I--” he choked on his words. “I didn’t know that if I grabbed his hand I would…” His lip trembled. Tony’s mouth was partially open. They stared at each other from the vast expanse of room-- simultaneously too close and too far. “I was trying to help him, but I killed--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No-- Pete, look at me.” Tony had a hand held out like he was trying to calm a horse. He shook his head. “You couldn’t have known.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But his head was clearly reeling, too. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t mean for you to--” Comfort him? Tell him that he hadn’t done anything wrong? Be </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tony </span>
  </em>
  <span>about it? “I’m just trying to explain.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he’d never talked about it. Never told a soul. He’d planned to take the secret to his own grave, but now it was like a pot of water boiling over. He couldn’t take it back, he couldn’t stop himself-- and he was going to get burned. It was going to hurt. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Put your suit on,” Tony said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?” Peter asked, already struggling to keep a level-head. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Put your suit on,” Tony repeated. He had his hands out, still trying to tame the distraught teenager in front of him. He took a step forward. Peter bristled. “Please. Pete, just-- your suit, okay?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Tony was nearly five feet away, Peter complied. Nanotech covered his body, masked his face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony pulled him in for a hug.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In his arms, Peter stiffened, and then deflated, burying his face in Tony’s shoulder, trying to hide the way his own shoulders jumped. A sob ripped from his throat. Tony shushed him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, it’s okay,” he promised, one hand firm between Peter’s shoulder blades.  “I’m glad you told me. I’m glad I know. Now I don’t have to…” he trailed off. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I didn’t want you to think I-I was avoiding you, o-or--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine,” Tony said. There was an edge to his voice. Not an unkind one, nothing harsh. It felt like a cliff. Like a waterfall. Something moving, and learning, and changing. “I understand, Pete. I understand…” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In the end, the Guardians had chosen not to question their luck in the same way the Avengers had chosen not to question theirs. As if, were they to voice the obvious, the universe would take it back. The opposite of manifesting. Jinxing it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter was grateful for that. Apparently, the Guardian’s reputation of dumb luck had taught them that sometimes the universe bends to your will.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>May sat, silent, staring into her tea. Tony and Peter exchanged a nervous glance. It had been thirty seconds since Peter told her the truth (the whole truth and nothing but the truth. No lies of omission). Peter put a hand on her forearm.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“May, are you mad--” he started. She put a hand on his, and shook her head. When she looked up, her face was red. She sniffed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course not,” she said quickly, forcing a smile. “Of course I’m not mad at you. I’m sorry, I’m just… reeling.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>May blinked rapidly. She took a sip of her tea, put it back down on the table with a </span>
  <em>
    <span>clink </span>
  </em>
  <span>that felt too loud in the silent kitchen. She looked back at Peter, and she was frowning. “Honey, that’s too much to keep to yourself. Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “Or-- anyone?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter closed his eyes. On the backs of his eyelids, he saw Ben in the garden, surrounded by moving figures that disappeared if Peter tried to focus on them. He saw Ben in the kitchen, alive and then not, the only reason being Peter’s hand on his own. He saw Pepper promising Tony rest. He saw all the people he could have helped and hadn’t. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Tony was watching him, too, carefully, and Peter thought about all the pain he caused in the interim. All the avoidance and cancelled plans and </span>
  <em>
    <span>there’s nothing you can really do here. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I felt guilty,” he said slowly, testing the shape of the words in his mouth. They tasted like Warheads. Bitter. Convoluted. Overwhelming. Peter wanted to spit them out, but he forced himself to sit with them, face turning red and bile growing in his throat. “I should… I should be able to save everyone, like this. But instead, I--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He pictured handing the man in the alley his wallet. How he’d gone stiff and fallen into Peter’s arms, dead before Peter could even help lower him to the concrete. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Saving everyone isn’t realistic,” Tony pointed out, and that was really rich coming from him, but the humor Peter may have found in that died in his chest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Peter said. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but I couldn’t even…” He trailed off. He looked over Tony’s head, at the portraits hanging above the television. At Ben’s face smiling at him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“There was a lot of trial and error,” he admitted quietly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter heard May gulp. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t--” she started, and he shook his head. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No! No, of course I didn’t.” The way Tony’s shoulder relaxed made something hot twist in Peter’s gut. Did he really think Peter had gone around slaughtering people just to see if he could revive them? “I just… didn’t realize at first. And then I wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>careful enough, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and there were a lot of people who--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Who were already dead,” Tony interjected. “That’s not your fault.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Instead of answering, Peter traced the grain of the table with his finger. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’re going to run some tests,” Tony told May. “See if we can figure out </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>he can… Non-invasive, Bruce Banner would be handling all of it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The… Hulk?” She clarified. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The Hulk has seven PHDs,” Tony assured. “But he’s not eighteen yet, so we wanted to get your consent.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter?” May asked. He looked up at her. “Do </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>want to do this?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter nodded his head once, sharp. “I want to know why it’s happening,” He said. “And if we can stop it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony and May looked at each other, faces in different shades of concern.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Then you have my consent,” May said, voice tight. “Test away.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So get this,” Harley said as soon as Peter answered the phone. “That guy Sally likes? He asked her to the winter formal.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh my </span>
  <em>
    <span>God, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harley!” Peter heard Sally whine from a distance. “Stop it!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Her friends showed me the pictures. He had--” There was a scuffle. Peter pulled the phone away from his ear while the phone banged and whined and scraped as it passed from hand to hand. Something crashed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A sign!” Harley managed to yell into the receiver. More shuffling sounds. Someone yelped (Peter was pretty sure it was Harley).</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>that big of a deal.” and it was Sally speaking this time. “It was in the hall before class and it was way more casual than Harley is making it sound.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He had </span>
  <em>
    <span>flowers!!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harley yelled to be heard. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Flowers?” Peter raised an eyebrow. “What kind of flowers are we talking?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just daisies.” Sally scoffed. “He’s making it sound like a bigger deal than it is. He just asked me if I wanted to go. That’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>all.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They weren’t in the room, but Peter hid his smirk behind his hand anyway. “So there was no sign?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>More sounds of a struggle. When Harley’s voice came through again, he sounded distant. Staticky. They’d finally put him on speaker. “There’s a rose in with the daisies! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hey! Don’t hit me with a pillow!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t answer my sign question,” Peter said. He sat back and propped his feet up on the desk. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sally sighed. “I mean…” She pitched her voice up. “There wasn’t… </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>a sign?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It was a pun,” Harley said morosely. “It said--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wanna hear from Sally,” Peter interjected. “Enlighten me on the pun.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sally groaned. “You’re just as annoying as he is,” she told Peter sincerely. “It…” She trailed off, her voice tight. “It said--” what came out was an intelligible mumble. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What was that?” Peter asked. “I couldn’t hear you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Are you keen to go to the dance with me?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Sally repeated, still quiet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter snorted. “That’s an SAT word,” he said, “I’d say Jason’s a keeper.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You haven’t asked the most important question yet,” Harley pointed out. He sounded like he was grinning. Peter closed his eyes, and he imagined them sitting on the floor around the coffee table, hair displaced from the impromptu wrestling match. He could see Harley’s smile as clear as a light. Proud, and thrilled, and maybe just a little bit evil. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Right, of course.” Peter laughed. “Did you say yes?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Of course I did!” Sally snapped, and that opened the floodgates. She launched into the story of how her friends had been looking around all morning, and trying to keep her from sneaking into the choir room to speak to the teacher. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It was really weird. They were being so shady about it. </span>
  </em>
  <span>How he’d approached just before the morning bell, when there weren’t so many people around </span>
  <em>
    <span>he didn’t want me to feel obligated to say yes, </span>
  </em>
  <span>how red his face had gotten as he’d held the sign up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley didn’t interrupt her. He let his sister tell the story as if he’d been hoping she would since the beginning. As if he knew she’d want to tell Peter-- and that Peter, in return, would want to be told.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was right. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was a nice break from life, hearing about how things go for everyone else. It reminded him that the world didn’t stop turning just because he felt consumed by an energy bigger than anything else. Panic. Guilt. Wonderings about the universe.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Normal people things.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sounds like your second freshman year is going pretty well,” Peter said. He picked a pen up from his desk and twirled it between his fingers. “You want me to give him the </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll beat you up if you hurt her </span>
  </em>
  <span>talk?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sally snorted. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>You?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>she asked, and Peter tried not to feel wounded. “I think Harley’s a little scarier.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ha!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s not scary just because he wears leather jackets sometimes,” Peter shot back. “I’m plenty scary!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, okay,” Sally said. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter bit his tongue. He was grinning.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” Harley said. “Go finish your homework. I’m gonna talk to Peter about some work stuff.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Bye Peter!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“See ya, Sally! Congrats, again.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Harley said, and his voice was closer this time. Peter closed his eyes, relaxed his shoulders.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” he said, his smile softening. He could hear footsteps. He imagined Harley walking through the house, carefully side-stepping sharp edges of counters and avoiding the floorboards he knew to creak. Walking past the pictures in the halfway of Sally and Harley on Halloween (there’s a picture of Harley dressed as a frog that makes Peter’s heart melt). </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Harley put his foot on the first step, it groaned under him. Peter could picture, perfectly, how he’d put his hand on the banister, how he’d shift the phone to be held between his shoulder and ear, how he’d hop the third step because it was always the loudest.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Tony said y’all are busy this weekend?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter hummed. “Internship stuff.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nothing dangerous, I hope?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Would you be jealous if I said it was?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was Harley’s turn to hum a response. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I take it you’re not coming down, then.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not until next month,” Peter said. “MJ, Ned, and I have plans next weekend.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ahh, the woman-owned business crawl,” Harley recalled. “Should be fun.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mmm,” Peter agreed. He glanced at the clock and balked. “Hey, it’s getting late and I have to be at the lab early tomorrow--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll talk to you later, Pete,” Harley said. “Be safe?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Always am.” Harley scoffed at that. It was the reaction Peter had been expecting. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Which tests are you going to run, exactly?” Peter asked. He balled his hand into a fist, flexing his muscles against the tourniquet. Bruce took his forearm in hand, and Peter looked away as he stuck the needle into his vein. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’re going to see how your blood interacts with dead cells,” Tony said. He was seated across the room, a safe distance away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And then we’re going to see how it interacts with Tony’s blood,” Bruce said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know,” Peter said, sparing a glance at his arm. Bruce had taped down the needle down, “your hands are surprisingly nimble. I thought I was going to have to do that myself.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You get used to it eventually,” Bruce said. “I actually just picked up needlepointing.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, wow. May used to do that a while ago. How’s it going for you?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce shrugged. “It’s a new hobby. You know how it is. There’s a learning curve.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If you’re having trouble, there’s a bunch of Youtube videos--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can we focus?” Tony blurted out. Peter and Bruce turned their heads to look at him. He had a puzzle in his hand, one of the little metal 8-ring ones that Peter had accidentally left in the lab. It was already apart, two separate hooks. They made a soft ringing sound as Tony rubbed them together. “My life’s kind of on the line.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce clicked his tongue. “Impatient,” he muttered under his breath. Peter scoffed. He held the vial of blood up, though, above his head so Tony could see it. “I’m going, I’m going.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He slid the desk with the microscope closer to himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“There’s dead blood cells on this slide,” Bruce explained as he hooked the microscope up. Peter could see it through the monitor. The cells were dyed blue. They’d learned about this in bio-- cell membranes break down when they die; it allowed dye to seep into them. “So I’m gonna put a drop of your blood beside them--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter watched, the inside of his cheek pinched tight between his teeth. His blood cells spread slowly, the drop moving toward the grouping of still, blue blood cells. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter’s blood bumped them, and they stirred. They became something throbbing and moving. Alive.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The dead cells didn’t reject the dye, they just started moving despite being bogged down with color. They shouldn’t have been able to-- if their membranes were broken, they shouldn’t be functioning, living things. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Incredible,” Bruce breathed, but Peter wasn’t so sure it was. It made him nauseous to watch the cells bump lazily into each other as if there weren’t physical proof within them that they were dead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce turned his attention to Tony, an awed smile on his face. “Ready?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>While Bruce took Tony’s blood, Peter watched as one of the revived cells bumped back into his own. As quickly as they’d started moving, the blue cells stopped. Frozen. Dead again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Same thing here?” Peter asked, dry-mouthed, as Bruce set up a slide with Tony’s blood on it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m just adding some dye to this one,” Bruce said. He smushed the liquid blood and dye with another slide. Then, he added a drop of blood from the other vial.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter watched, rapt, as his own blood landed on the cell with Tony’s blood and the dye. For a long, silent moment nothing happened. Then their blood touched, and it passed like a wave. They died rapidly, near-immediate cell decomposition, the dye staining Tony’s blood cells blue. Tony’s blood cells were alive, and then they were dead. Peter’s stomach turned.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony sucked in a breath. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t touch the kid. Got it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The silence felt endless. Peter stared at the screen, suddenly feeling feverish. His own blood moved around a little bit, like rubber tubes in a pond, no set direction. He didn’t dare look at Tony, didn’t want to know what kind of betrayed expression he would wear. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce looked between them, lips twisted into an uncomfortable half-frown. “This is probably a bad time to ask… but could I get some more of your blood?” he asked Peter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter blinked and forced himself to look away from the monitor. “What?” He asked. “For this?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Partially,” Bruce said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I want to run some more tests and see if I can figure out </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>you could kill Tony by just--” The chair Tony sat on creaked. Bruce cleared his throat and shook his head. “I’ve also been interested since I heard about the spider bite.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He looked at Peter with hopeful eyes. Peter pressed his lips together. He let out a breath. “Knock yourself out,” he said, unenthusiastically. Bruce’s face lit up.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter dreamt of the garden, again. When the flowers broke through his skin, blue blood cells came out, unmoving and still. The flowers shrunk away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Would you rather keep the mask on?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked at her through the gossamer eyes of his mask. He felt uncomfortable-- entirely suited up in neutral territory. The couch beneath him was worn suede, across from him was a mini-fountain shaped like a frog. The room was comfortably furnished and monochromatically painted, and there were certificates on the wall all written out to Laura Farrow, PHD. He nodded. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She smiled. “That’s fine-- Have you seen a therapist before?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter swallowed. “A few years ago,” he said. “There was a death in the family.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did you find it helpful?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter considered the question. “I…” he started carefully, testing the weight of the words in his mouth, “found it very hard to be honest.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You were protecting your identity?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter nodded. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The good thing is,” she said, “is that I don’t need to know who you are to listen to you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So I just… talk to you?” Peter’s fingers tapped against his thighs. Nervous energy had gathered in his palms. Bolts of lightning. “About anything?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Let’s start with why you’re here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter opened his mouth, then closed it. He could answer honestly, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mr. Stark won’t let me back out as Spider-man until I start seeing a professional. </span>
  </em>
  <span>They’d made a deal after watching instantaneous cellular decay, and after Peter had avoided him for six months, and after May had called Tony, concerned, asking him to ask Peter about his nightmares. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It didn’t seem like a productive answer, though, and it was only half-true. He was also here in the hopes that it would keep him out of the guidance counsellor’s office. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He, instead, started with the obvious.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ve been having dreams,” he said, “Where the people I love die and it’s my fault.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you see a lot of that?” she asked him. “People you love dying?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes?” Peter said. “No.” He took a moment to clear his throat. “My uncle died in our kitchen a few years ago,” he said. “I was there for that. And recently, the battle with Thanos…” It felt weird to say that to someone while suited up. A stranger. And he was telling her his life story. “I watched someone I love die.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s a lot to take in,” she said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The dreams, though-- I don’t always know the people.” He closed his eyes now, though, and he could see them. A blonde haired girl, limp in his arms, a web attached to the top of her spine. A guy his own age, whose hand he held in the back of an ambulance as he died. All of them in the garden. And he woke, from all of them, with guilt pooled at the back of his throat. He started the day by coughing it up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s not uncommon,” The therapist said. “Our minds supplement a lot of different people in our dreams.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter shook his head. “It feels like a memory,” he said, and his voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “Sorry, it’s just… I’ve had bad dreams before, they’ve just been worse since I… got back.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You have a lot of weight on your shoulders,” she said. “And it sounds like you’ve had a lot of traumatic experiences you haven’t had the chance to work through.” She smiled, gently, “it’s good that you’re here.” </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you notice scientific errors, no u don't &lt;3 (no, but forreal, that's probably not how blood works but I'm a communications major, haha). </p><p>Also, I added to the number of chapters again, I keep writing more than I'd intended.</p><p>Thank you so much for reading! As always, feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr @dredfulhapiness my asks are always open!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The hum of fluorescent settled under Peter’s skin like a bug bite. The conference room was only partially finished and there were already dead flies stuck in the paneling of the lights. There were twelve of them. Peter had counted three times. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Will you </span>
  <em>
    <span>please </span>
  </em>
  <span>relax?” Tony asked. He was referring to Peter’s pacing. Up the length of the room, then back. Up the length of the room, then back. “You’re wearing holes in the new carpet.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“When is he gonna be here?” Peter said instead of responding. Tony wasn’t handling the stress any better-- he was practically banging out an entire drum solo on the table. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“When he gets here,” Tony said. “You know how hard it is to find an Uber that can fit him. We had to make the doors here extra tall </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <span>extra wide.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter scowled at him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The news isn’t going to be any different if he gets here sooner, kid,” Tony pointed out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He wouldn’t want to meet in person if it wasn’t bad news, right? If it was good news he’d just tell us over the phone.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s not a big fan of phones,” Tony said. “You’re overthinking it. What’s the worst news he could give us?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter stared at him, silent. Tony’s face darkened as his imagination answered his own question. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Look, you’re stressing </span>
  <em>
    <span>me </span>
  </em>
  <span>out,” he said, digging around in his pocket. He pulled out his wallet and slid a ten dollar bill across the table. “Go downstairs and get us coffee. By the time you get back he should be here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And if he’s not?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Then he’s not, but at least you’ll have coffee. Damn, kid, do I need to grab you a Xanax?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter snatched the bill off the table. “Fine,” he huffed. ”I’ll be back with coffee.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do me a favor and walk slow.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter flipped him the bird over his shoulder. He pulled the door open and nearly screamed. Bruce Banner stood in the doorway, hand reaching for where the handle had just been.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re here,” Peter said, “finally.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sorry,” Bruce said, ducking to make it through the door. “There was a lot of traffic, and Strange wasn’t home for a ride.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He was home,” Peter said, “he’s just on strike.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter was using him to get to Tennessee too much,” Tony explained. “He’s sworn off helping us.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just what you want to hear from one of the last working heroes on Earth,” Bruce muttered. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What did you need to talk about?” Tony asked as Peter opened his mouth. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, I ran some tests on your blood, Peter,” Bruce said, putting his bag on the table. “Re-ran the tests we did before a few times, just to make sure that the results were all the same--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And they were?” Peter’s eyebrows were halfway up his forehead. Bruce nodded.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Every time,” he said. “Instantaneous revival, and instantaneous decay.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony sniffed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Any cause?” Tony asked, by which he meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>any way to fix it?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce shook his head. “I’ve studied your blood cells, I’ve researched different types of spiders to see if anything like this is naturally occurring in any of them--” he looked at Peter. “I don’t see any reason this should be happening.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Which means we can’t stop it,” Peter said. He wasn’t sulking-- he was just pulling his arms across his chest in despair and frowning because it was bad news. Not sulking. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll keep looking,” Bruce assured him. “But that wasn’t the only thing I discovered.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter braced his hands on the back of a chair. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce pulled some papers out of his bag, along with a small, blue bottle. Peter watched him impatiently.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay, first of all, your cholesterol is a little high,” Bruce said. He tossed the bottle to Peter. “Start taking those daily, they should take care of that problem.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter caught it and squinted at the label. Store brand cholesterol support. He pocketed it. “Thanks,” he mumbled. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No problem. Just have your doctor check on that next time you go in.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did you find out anything about his… whole situation.” Tony waved his hand. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I was getting to that,” Bruce muttered. He looked hurt, but Peter was in no mood to shoot Tony a stern look. Also, he was grateful Tony had said it so he hadn’t needed to. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nothing overly exciting happened,” Bruce said. “The revived cells stayed alive until they would have naturally died. So long as they didn’t come back into contact with one of your blood cells, that is.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony blinked. “They died naturally,” he repeated, in a tone that implied he’d thought about this before. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“As if their death was just someone hitting pause,” Bruce agreed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But we don’t know why,” Peter said. “Or </span>
  <em>
    <span>how.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He thought, again, about stars. How their death became the catalyst for birth. What was human death the catalyst for? Was it as simple as a butterfly flapping its wings? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Did life have a formula that Peter had thrown off balance? Had he pulled matter from a star? A forced repurposing?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Would the universe mind him breaking its rules? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Stay with us, kid,” Tony said. He had his hands steepled in front of him, the sides of his index fingers pressing against his lips. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m here,” Peter lied. “So the people I’ve brought back… they’re going to die normally?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“As if nothing had killed them in the first place,” Bruce said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter swallowed. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “And me?” he finally managed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce regarded him. “Your cells died naturally, too,” he assured. “No one here’s immortal.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony’s shoulders slumped, and the quiet groan he let out sounded like relief. Peter blinked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Anything else?” Tony asked. Bruce shook his head.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mainly I just wanted to give you those.” He pointed to the bottle of vitamins. “And let you know I’m still looking.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You doing alright? You haven’t made a single Star Wars reference.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter made a noise in the back of his throat. There was a princess tiara sitting crooked on his head. There were stickers across his cheeks. He looked up from the doll he was pretending to tuck into bed. Morgan was a few feet away, rummaging through the toy chest in search of a pair of fairy wings.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Great,” Peter said. “Just don’t have much experience with this. How do you swaddle a baby?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony frowned. “Carefully,” he said. Then, with a nod of his head toward the kitchen, “Come get a cup of coffee with me.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uh,” Peter said. “Yeah, alright. I’ll be right back, Morg.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She turned her head. “Okay,” she said. “Can you get me a cookie?” Her eyes sparkled. Peter laughed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he assured. “One cookie coming right up.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The kitchen was lit only by the fading afternoon light. A single, long stretch of pale yellow tableclothed the island. When Peter pressed his hand to the granite, it was cold to the touch. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” Tony asked, crossing his arms over his chest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter furrowed his brow. He bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood. He ran his fingers along the lip of the counter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I was just hoping for better news,” he said finally. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We </span>
  <em>
    <span>got </span>
  </em>
  <span>good news,” Tony pointed out. Peter rubbed at his eyes and shook his head.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, we got news that we already knew,” He said. “We didn’t get, like, a </span>
  <em>
    <span>solution.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Solutions take time,” Tony said. He did not say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>if there is one, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but Peter knew he had to have been thinking it. “We know how to handle this. That’s enough for now.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I just… I hate--” he waved his hand around. “If I move too far to the </span>
  <em>
    <span>right,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he said. “I-it’s that easy to fu…” He motioned to Tony and whined, “It’s exhausting.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony sighed. He rubbed at his chin and regarded Peter carefully. “We’ll work around it,” he said. “That’s all we can do right now.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter didn’t say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>sounds like something Steve would say. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He didn’t say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you aren’t the one who would feel guilty if something went wrong. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He didn’t say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I keep dreaming that I kill you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He did say, “Yeah. I guess it is.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He turned around and dug into the pantry. He came out with a mini pack of Oreos. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re mad at me,” Tony said to his back. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not mad at you,” Peter responded, grabbing the milk from the fridge and pouring it into a small, plastic cup. He turned to find Tony staring at him, eyebrow raised. “I’m not,” he repeated, less aggressive. “I’m frustrated.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Tony said. “I’m sorry, kid. But, hey--” He stepped in front of Peter before Peter could pass him. Peter took a jerky step back, betrayed by the casual way Tony risked his life. “You’re not going through this alone anymore.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Peter said. He nodded. “I know.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it made him feel better, it did. It just made him feel better in all the same ways it made him feel worse. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony knew about his power and its risks, which meant that Tony was worrying about it, too. Tony had to go to the appointments and watch parts of himself die, and he had to think about where his limbs were at all times, and he had to reassure Peter when, so far, they’d heard nothing particularly reassuring. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter felt better, because Tony </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew </span>
  </em>
  <span>and it meant Peter wasn’t avoiding him without explanation. Peter felt worse, because Tony </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew </span>
  </em>
  <span>and it was a burden. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m gonna…” Peter held up the package of cookies. Tony frowned at him, but he stepped out of the way.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you think of the pink?” Sally turned away from the mirror. “Is it too much? Does it kind of work?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It looks beautiful,” Harley said, but sincerity had drained from the sentiment three dresses ago. He didn’t even bother looking up from his phone this time. “They’ve all looked beautiful.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sally crossed her arms over her chest. “You could at least pretend to care,” she told him. She glowered at him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>care.” Harley turned his phone screen off. He cast his gaze up at her, one eyebrow quirked up with annoyance. “I offered to pay for it, didn’t I?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter elbowed him in the rib. “You sound like Tony,” He said under his breath, and it wasn’t meant to be a compliment. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ow! Dude…” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What Harley </span>
  <em>
    <span>means </span>
  </em>
  <span>to say is that you could wear jeans and you’d look nice, Sal.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Also that they’d only come because Pat had been called into work last minute. She needed a ride, and Harley had been planning on paying for the dress anyway, and they’d had nothing else going on. He’d been as involved as possible until his phone had dinged and his attention went to it without faltering. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter had been playing </span>
  <em>
    <span>Say Yes to the Dress </span>
  </em>
  <span>alone for the better part of an hour while Harley frowned down at his lap. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Except I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>going in jeans,” she pointed out. “I’m going in a dress, and I want to look, you know, nice, because there’s going to be a lot of people there I don’t know.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The high school’s not that big, Sal,” Harley said, voice tight with condescension. “I’m sure you know everyone there. You’ve been going to school with them since—“</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley stopped himself just before Peter put a warning hand on his wrist. Peter dug his nails in. Just a little. Beside him, he heard Harley swallow. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Right.” Harley cleared his throat and averted his gaze to the clearance rack. “Sorry. Forgot.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter frowned at his profile. He’d been weird all weekend, ready to jump at the snap of a twig. Conversations with him had been like assembling a stained glass window; they came in bits and the bigger picture was something convoluted and disjointed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe Peter hadn’t quite finished assembling it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sally,” Peter said cautiously, deciding to deal with Harley later. “Have you been making friends? Since you came back.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A few of them got Blipped with me,” she evaded. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s not what I asked.” He watched her face carefully. Her fingers deepened the pleats in the skirt. Her jaw tightened. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I figured this was a good first impression,” she said finally. “We’re going in a big group with Jason’s friends, so I’ll be with new people. And everyone goes to the diner after, anyway, so there will be people </span>
  <em>
    <span>there</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and—“</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The blue one,” Harley interrupted. She craned her neck to look at him. The lines in his face had softened. The window at the front of the store cast him in the dying grey of dusk. Half of his face was in sharp focus under boutique lighting— the other half was fuzzy and unclear. He was looking at the selection of dresses Sally had hung up. “The blue one was pretty. It brought out the green in your eyes and it didn’t have any of the bows or flowers.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She looked at Peter. Her face was still red. “Pete?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think the blue one would be perfect,” he agreed with a nod, one eye on each of the Keener children. “Plus, it’s a way easier color to match for the tie.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sally looked back at the mirror. “Great,” she said, straightening the lines of the dress. “The blue one it is.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The bowels of February had arrived. Outside had become a permanent freezer, supplemented by the hazy grey clouds of winter. The city heaved a breath all at once, and Peter felt it in his chest. It came out of subway grates a dull, transparent smoke. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did you disappear?” Peter asked into the similarly monotonous office. “During The Blip?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dr. Farrow shook her head. She pressed her lips together at the question, though, tight and uncomfortable. “No, I didn’t,” she said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter licked his lips. “What was it like?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She regarded him carefully, pulled one leg over the other, glanced down at her notes. The fountain kept tricking, louder in the quiet. Outside the door, he could hear the hum of the white noise machine. She lifted her chin. “It was hard,” she admitted. “My husband blipped, and so did my sister. Life took a lot of rearranging.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter closed his eyes and imagined her moving every piece of her life around like furniture. Finding a new place to live because she couldn’t afford their apartment on her own salary. Watching the construction of memorials. Patients coming in with the same problems as her. She had to tell them how to work through the uncertainty she was drowning in. Drawing up a floor plan for a house she’d never seen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter opened his eyes. He was back in the present.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m so sorry,” He said, too sincere to be a formality. His foot jackhammered against the ground. His fingers curled into fists over his knees.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You feel guilty?” Dr. Farrow asked. She tilted her head. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We had a chance to stop it,” Peter said, voice thin. “We failed.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She shook her head again. “Tell me about that,” she said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So he did. He told her about meeting Quill and Drax, about meeting Thanos on Titan and having an opportunity to end it right there, about not being strong enough to pry the gauntlet from his hand. How he’d felt, in that moment, the weight of the universe, like he was a black hole sucking up every failure. As he spoke, her hand tightened around her pen, the corners of her lips turned down. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If we’d tried a little harder, we might have won,” Peter said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dr. Farrow shook her head. “You’re sitting here now, that means you won.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter scoffed. “It doesn’t feel like it,” he said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She sighed, but she smiled to herself, fond. “You helped save people,” she told him. There was a lull in conversation. Peter picked at a loose thread in his suit. “I don’t think it’s The Blip you feel guilty about,” she said finally. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter swallowed. “I do,” he said. “A little bit.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But if he stopped thinking about The Blip, he started thinking about everything else he had to feel guilty about. All of the pets left in burning buildings, and bank robberies he wasn’t quick enough to totally shut down, and all the people who were left alive </span>
  <em>
    <span>after </span>
  </em>
  <span>that. All the families that had to bury someone because Peter hadn’t been fast enough, or smart enough, or strong enough. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You are in an incredible position,” Dr. Farrow told him. “A lot of people rely on you, and a lot more look up to you. That’s a lot of responsibility.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter coughed out a laugh. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How do you react when you can’t meet expectations?” She asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Whose?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She raised an eyebrow. “Do you compartmentalize?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter stared at her, knee bouncing. He admitted after a long moment, “No.” Then, “I just try not to think about it. When I can’t help someone.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That doesn’t seem very productive,” Dr Farrow said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s a lot of not thinking,” Peter agreed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not thinking about it is just as bad as dwelling on it,” she said. “That’s how it sneaks up on you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She was right. He knew she was right. Waking ignorance had sent awareness to his dreams. The dreams weren’t getting better, just more vivid. Dreams where pressing a hand to Tony’s neck hadn’t brought him back at all. Dreams where the dead stayed dead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She leaned forward. “You need to let yourself grieve.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked beyond her, out the window, where he could see just the barest traces of brick through the half-closed blinds. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You need to learn to forgive yourself.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think I know what that feels like.” Peter scoffed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s why you’re here,” Dr. Farrow reminded him gently. “I went to school for eight years for this-- give me a chance.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She raised an eyebrow at him-- playful-- and Peter thought, again, about the closet-turned-office at Midtown and the counsellor in it who was just trying, as so many people were, to do her best. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe trying his best didn’t always look like winning fights and swinging through Manhattan. Maybe trying his best sometimes needed to look like sitting in a beige doctor’s office and learning to be better. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re right,” Peter said. “Alright, Doc, let’s get my head sorted out.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’d found a rhythm. Two separate work tables, two different sets of tools, all chairs in the garage more than six feet apart. The goal was avoidance, and it was rooted both in fear and necessity. Tony worked over ten feet away from him, head buried in the newest iron suit, and it felt closer than they had in months. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes it was quiet work. They could go hours without speaking, even when Harley was between them, running from Tony’s workbench to Peter’s, only the back end of a question written on his face. If he was curious about the new setup, he didn’t ask. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes they talked, like they used to. About school, or Pepper’s plans for Stark Industries, or about how </span>
  <em>
    <span>May and Happy are definitely dating, right? I’m not the only one who sees that? </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A lot of the time, Morgan sat with them. Those were the days they weren’t working on Peter’s suit (she was too young to effectively keep secrets, and Harley had found pride in being the one to mod Peter’s suits, so this was more often than not). </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter, did you bring the game?” Morgan asked, her feet swinging in front of her. The stool was high enough to reach the worktable. Standing, she was just barely taller than it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mhm,” Peter said, carefully pulling a wire away from the watch he was fixing. It was a birthday gift for Ned. Peter found it, cheap and broken, on Ebay and thought it would be fun to fix up for him (even if Tony scoffed at the Oscorp tech). “We can’t play until tomorrow, though. Harley wants to join.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We can’t play a game without him?” She asked, putting her hands flat on the table and lifting herself up to look at what Peter was working on. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We don’t have enough people,” Peter said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We have four people,” Morgan said, holding out four fingers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but I’m running it, so we only have three. Can you hand me the tweezers, please?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She slid them across the table to him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Besides, it’ll be more fun to play with Harley, too.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Has he played before?” She asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but he already gave me his character sheet.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“His </span>
  <em>
    <span>huh?” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, right,” Peter said, “You’re five.” He pushed his hair back out of his face. “Look, we can’t play tonight, but after dinner we can work together to make your character.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Morgan’s face lit up. “Can I be a princess?” she asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure, if you want.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can I be an </span>
  <em>
    <span>evil </span>
  </em>
  <span>princess?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked up at her nervously. “Uh… Sure? If you want?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He shot Tony a glance. Tony just shrugged. “Let her be evil if she wants to be evil,” he said. “What’s the harm?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Daddy, have you ever played this game?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uncle Rhodey and I played in college a few times,” Tony said. He wiped grease off of his hands. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh! Can Uncle Rhodey play with us?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If you ask him to, he will,” Tony said. That was true. As much as Rhodey pretended he wasn’t weak to Morgan’s charms, he would do anything she asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(“She’s my goddaughter,” he said one morning, when he’d brought donuts over simply because Morgan had called and asked him to, “What am I gonna do? Tell her </span>
  <em>
    <span>no?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, considering we told her she couldn’t have donuts,” Tony replied, sliding a mug of coffee across the table to him </span>
  <em>
    <span>because you’re already here. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Unheard of,” Rhodey said, and he took a sip of his coffee.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ask him next time he comes to visit,” Peter said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, when it was just the two of them, Peter would look up and find Tony looking at him with a strange look on his face. Some mixture of awe, and relief, and pride, and Peter would look away quickly, frowning. He couldn’t name the look, but he was sure he wasn’t meant to see it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony usually struck up a conversation after that-- what did they want for dinner. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You should bring Ned back up another time. </span>
  </em>
  <span>How were things going with Flash and did Peter need Tony to call his parents? And they laughed, or changed the subject, and Peter tried not to think too hard about it because there are some things people just want to keep to themselves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes Peter wasn’t working. He sat in the corner and pretended to be doing math homework and allowed himself to mentally check out for at least an hour. He doodled flowers and superhero logos in the margins of his notebook and bopped his head to the music Tony had playing through the speakers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter found himself watching Tony while he worked. He had a dignity about him, even alone in the lab, frowning as he mumbled orders to Friday. He crossed his arms over his chest, one hand rubbing at his chin while he thought. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was struck, suddenly, by the realization that Tony was alive. He was alive, and in front of Peter, and suddenly any regret Peter had lodged in his chest had grown into a garden of relief. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next time he caught Tony looking at him, he recognized the expression on his face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Call me if you need me to come get you, alright?” Harley said into the phone as he brought an armful of blankets into the living room. The only light on his face was from the screen. “Is your phone charged enough to get a hold of me in the morning? Then turn it off after you hang up-- I know, Sal, but if the power doesn’t come back on, you need a way to call either me or Mom… Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then, and my phone will be on all night if you need-- yeah, I know you are. I know. Okay, have fun. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He pulled the phone away from his ear, rolled his eyes at the screen. There was a smile on his face, though. “She’s just gonna stay at her friend’s tonight. Any luck with the fire?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter made a non-commital noise. He did not, in fact, have any luck with the fire. “The wood’s wet,” he said, which was mostly just an excuse. He turned to look at Harley, the long-reach lighter lit in front of his face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It shouldn’t be,” Harley said. “It’s been inside.” He made his way across the dark living room carefully. He kneeled beside Peter and nudged him out of the way of the opening to the woodstove. He took the lighter from Peter, then patted the ground around him. “Where’s the paper from the table?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The paper I told you to grab to help light it. From the table.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter shook his head. “You didn’t tell me grab any paper--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I definitely did. The wood isn’t going to catch if you just hold a lighter up to it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I just… thought…” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pete, you need </span>
  <em>
    <span>kindling.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know that!” Peter crossed his arms around his chest. In theory, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>know that, but in practice… He hadn’t exactly been the kid to go camping. His summer camps usually took place in the gym of the local rec center and involved math competitions. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley sighed. “I’ll be right back,” he said, turning the flashlight on his phone. He made his way into the kitchen and came back with a few sheets of paper clutched in his fist. He crumpled them up and shoved them in front of the wood, at the bed of the stove. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“City boys can’t do anything,” he mumbled as he stuck strips of cardboard between the halved logs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I can read a subway schedule,” Peter said. He watched as Harley flicked the lighter on. When he pressed it to the kindling, it caught. The wood followed soon after. “And get on the right train instead of ending up Brooklyn Heights.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I got on the right train,” Harley argued. “There was a change in the schedule they didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>announce.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s New York, baybee,” Peter said. He sat back on his heels. It was already warmer near the woodstove.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“This isn’t going to heat up the whole house,” Harley said. “But it should keep us warm in here.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Outside, the snow was coming down so thick Peter could hardly see through the window. It just looked like a solid sheet of foggy white. If he aimed a projector at it, they could screen a movie. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Peter hadn’t even noticed when it had started snowing. They’d been in the shed, Peter forcing himself to actually get some homework done while Harley worked on a design Tony had asked him to whip up. It had been quiet, save for the occasional sound of Harley humming along to whatever song was playing through his headphones and the hesitant click of Peter’s keyboard.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’d both been focused-- Harley moreso than Peter-- when the power had gone out with a groan. They’d looked up, startled, faces lit up only by the blue light of their laptops. Peter’s had switched to a screen warning him there was no internet connection. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Power’s out,” Harley said, eyes searching upwards as if that would turn the lights above them back on. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I noticed,” Peter murmured. The room brightened. Harley held his phone out in front of him, the flash on. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We should head in. We’ll freeze to death out here.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was resistance when Peter tried to push the door open. It took the two of them, shoulder pressed against the wood, to force the door open enough to squeeze through the gap.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Jesus,” Peter said. “How long were we in there?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The snow had gathered, and it was easily eight inches high. He closed the door behind them, and tucked his laptop against his chest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They trudged back to the house, Peter wincing at the feeling of snow in his sneakers. His feet and the bottoms of his pants were soaked by the time they made it back to the house. They banged their feet uselessly against the side of the house before walking into the kitchen. Peter slid on the tile, and grabbed at the counter for support. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Get changed and regroup in the living room?” Harley asked, clinging to the doorknob as he toed his shows off. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Blankets?” Peter asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Please.”)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They moved the furniture out of the way and piled all of the blankets in the center of the room, close enough to the fire to stay warm, but not close enough that they were sweltering. Peter could hear both the crackle of the fire and the screaming of the wind outside-- and he could also hear Harley breathing. It was even. Calm. But it wasn’t slow. He was still awake. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were close, laying together in a nest of blankets and pillows. It felt like a middle school sleepover, the kind where he and Ned would make a pillow fort in the living room and insist on sleeping in it while all of the Star Wars movies played straight through on the television. It was warm, and comfortable, and Peter made a small sound of contentment as he burrowed himself into his pillow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Snow’s pretty,” He muttered, watching out the window. It had slowed down, now, enough to watch snowflakes drop one by one. “And clean.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley made a lilting sound of amusement. “I had it imported just for you,” he said in a voice you’d expect to deliver a confession. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There were a few moments of silence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You seem happier,” Harley said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Huh?” Peter turned his head. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Lately. You seem happier.” Harley was laying on his side, facing Peter. “It’s nice.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter pulled a hand up under his pillow and searched Harley’s face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There were a lot of ways he could have replied. Some of them showed his hand more than others; they were a bit more honest that Peter was comfortable being. Some of them were just lies. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter settled in the middle. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I am,” he admitted with a subtle nod. Peter watched the light from the fire dance on Harley’s face. The corners of his lips crinkled, and a wrinkle formed on the bridge of his nose, the toll for sincerity. It made Peter’s heart sing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley replied, so casually that it hurt, “Good, you deserve it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They didn’t talk after that. Peter couldn’t find a response, and Harley didn’t press the conversation. They fell asleep to wind, and fire, and a little bit of hail, and they woke up to white light and a dying fire and they put the first blemishes in the snow and Peter realized he’d told more truth than lie. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter read a magazine while he sat in the waiting room. It was one of the doctor’s office staples, with a one-word title and some celebrity on the cover that he hardly recognized. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The bell above the front door rang, and he glanced up over the top of the magazine. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A little boy stood, frozen, in the doorway. His mother tugged at his hand desperately, trying to pull him toward the opposite grouping of chairs.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mom, look!” he said, pointing, “it’s Spider-Man!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Honey, don’t point people out,” she said desperately, a flush on her cheeks. “It’s rude, especially here.” She looked at Peter, “I’m so sorry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He put a hand up, shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said. “I don’t mind.” He leaned down so he was on the kid’s level. He couldn’t have been older than eight, with curls that framed his forehead and an ecstatic grin. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why are you here?” the kid asked. His face morphed into something serious, wrinkles forming on his forehead “Do you have trouble paying attention in school, too?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter breathed a laugh. He nodded. “Sometimes,” he said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m here because I won’t sit still.” The kid kicked at the carpet, chewed at the corner of his lip. “But I’m mad because Michael and Sam get to spend Tuesdays going to the rec center.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter sighed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I have places I’d rather be, too,” he admitted. “But I need to see a doctor because sometimes my brain doesn’t always work the way I need it to.” He knocked on the side of his head, just above his ear. The little boy giggled. “It’s important to get help when you need it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter picked at the bandage on his elbow. The cotton pulled away in pills. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Still nothing, huh?” He said before Bruce could even open up the file he’d brought with him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce’s shoulders deflated by millimeters. “I’ve been running tests on live animals,” he said, forcing cheerfulness. “Checking lifespans, conditions, stuff like that. The results seem to be the same across the board. If I bring them to life and no part of you ever touches them again, they live to old age.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Then what are the conditions?” Tony asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t work if wounds are totally incompatible with life,” Bruce said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Aren’t all fatal wounds incompatible with life?” Peter raised an eyebrow. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce shook his head, “If you’ve got a brain, a heart--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Courage,” Tony muttered under his breath.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“--Lungs, all vital organs-- if you have those, the body will restart like nothing happened in the first place.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pretty useful,” Tony said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter clicked his tongue. “Any information on how to turn it off?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not a lightswitch,” Bruce said. “It’s in your DNA. That would be like reversing your eye color.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So that’s it?” Peter asked. He felt Tony’s gaze on him, warm with concern. “It’s permanent?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll keep looking,” Bruce assured, again. “But I don’t think you’re ever going to get the answer you want.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter?” Tony said, voice soft with worry. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter made himself look at him. He felt a crick in his neck, a physical manifestation of his hesitation. It was weaker than before, though. He could navigate through it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” Peter said, and it felt like the truth. It came out of his mouth without the mustiness of a lie. No mothballs. Tony didn’t look convinced. He sniffed. “Look, w-we’re careful. We’ve lasted this long on just </span>
  <em>
    <span>caution, </span>
  </em>
  <span>we can last another thirty years. It’s just a new normal.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony’s eyes gleamed. Something golden. His face cracked into a smile. Relieved. He nodded. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for looking into this, Banner,” Tony said, standing. He reached a hand out to Bruce and shook. Bruce’s fist enveloped half of Tony’s forearm. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, no problem. It’s really interesting.” He shook Peter’s hand next. “And, hey, if you ever need anything else, I’m here. I have a few teaching jobs, but nothing exciting. So even if you just need help babysitting…” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’ll keep that in mind, thanks.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know I’m big, but I’m really good with kids. And, you know, you’ve let everyone else babysit…” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Everyone is a bit of a stretch,” Tony said as he walked Bruce to the door. “Capsicle never watched her, and Nat only did a couple times-- But you’re right,” he amended quickly. “Next date night, you’ll be the first one we call.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, man. I really appreciate that.” Bruce stopped in the doorway. “And, Peter, if you ever need an internship or a college credit, I could use an assistant.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, wow. That’s awesome, Dr. Banner.” Peter’s face lit up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” Tony said. “No poaching my intern.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce laughed, waved. Tony closed the door behind him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It would look good on a resume,” Peter said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony pointed at him. “No. Bad intern.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>MJ’s shag rug was soft against Peter’s cheek. He rubbed his face against it, like a cat familiarizing himself with the area. “Mercy,” he said, the words as smushed as his cheek. “Need a break.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The test is tomorrow,” MJ said, poking his shin with her toe. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And you know everything,” Peter said. “Five minutes?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ned leaned back into the beanbag chair he was seated in. The flashcards on his knee tipped, but miraculously didn’t fall. “If I have to hear one more thing about the cold war, I’ll die,” he agreed dramatically. “We have weapons, they have weapons, they have a super soldier, ours is frozen in ice…” He mimicked a jabbering mouth with his hand. “Blah blah blah.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How are we celebrating MJ’s passing grade?” Peter asked, stretching his arm as far out as he could in a weak attempt to grab his binder. His fingertips grazed the textured plastic. He groaned. MJ sighed (smiled) and kicked it closer to him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We were thinking a movie,” Ned said. “Something art house-y.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>MJ snorted. “Saturday?” She asked Peter. “We were gonna grab coffee after.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter sucked in a breath. “I can’t,” he said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ned booed him quietly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Peter said. “But, I’m gonna be in Tennessee.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“With </span>
  <em>
    <span>Harley,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>MJ said, and she added a lilt to his name. Like it was a melody. Peter sat up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?” He demanded. His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shit,” Ned said, dejected. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>told </span>
  </em>
  <span>you,” MJ said. She made a ‘gimme’ motion at Ned. “Ten dollars.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Peter said. He pointed to Ned, who had a hand in his pocket, “Put your wallet away.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nuh-uh,” MJ interjected. “You might have spider-senses, but I have a fantastic bullshit detector.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ned shrugged at him. “She does,” He admitted. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked between them. Two traitors. Co-conspirators. He stuck his tongue out at them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Is that a yes?” MJ raised an eyebrow. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Fine. I…” He swallowed. “Yeah, I have a crush on Harley.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it felt so childish to say it like that. So juvenile. Like notes passed across middle school classrooms. It tasted like Fun Dip and Sweetarts. Candy that came in cheesy Valentine’s Day cards that could only be purchased in bulk. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was the first time Peter had said it out loud, and it tasted so obnoxiously </span>
  <em>
    <span>sweet. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ned folded his ten dollar bill into an airplane and threw it at MJ’s head. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And?” Ned asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And nothing,” Peter said. “We’re just friends.”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>MJ formed a megaphone with her hands. “Boo!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’re just friends,” Peter repeated. “I’m leaving for college in August, he lives a thousand miles away, and I don’t even know if he’s into guys or not.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You could </span>
  <em>
    <span>ask,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Ned suggested. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If it comes up, it comes up,” Peter said. “I don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>need </span>
  </em>
  <span>to know because we’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>just. Friends.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” MJ said, tossing Peter her textbook. “You’re just friends. Let’s go over the space race. Page eleven twenty-seven.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pete, you quiz us,” Ned said. “You have an unfair advantage.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think you think I went on a much more Star Trek-like journey than I did,” Peter said, but he flipped to the page anyway, mostly relieved they weren’t talking about Harley anymore. “What was the name of the dog the Soviet Union sent into space?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>MJ slammed her hand on the ground, a make-shift buzzer. “Laika!” she said, and Ned groaned and clutched at his hair. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The ground beneath Peter’s knees was soft as a rug. The soil felt like velvet in his palms. Beside him, Ben was humming a song whose tune Peter knew but couldn’t name. When he opened his mouth, Peter heard a baseball game. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter’s hands wandered carefully through the bed of flowers, avoiding the stems and leaves as he searched for weeds. When he pulled them, they came out roots and all-- morphing, squirming things that played a piano note. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Every so often, figures would pass in his periphery. Peter had learned to tune them out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“This place has gotten quieter,” Peter said as he pulled two weeds at once. They played an incomplete C# chord that decrescendo’d. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hmm.” Ben placed a watering can beside Peter. “Or your brain has.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I was hoping I could fix it,” Peter said, and a shadow passed by. He kept his eyes on the flowers. Wind picked up. Distant, but getting closer. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And instead?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I just had to adapt,” Peter said. “He’s alive. That’s enough.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The wind stopped. Peter leaned back on his heels and took the watering can in hand. It weighed nothing, but when he tipped it over, a nebula came pouring out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ben opened his mouth, and an announcer’s voice, pillowed by cheering, said </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s out of the park! The Met’s have won the game! </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You have it backward,” Tony said. He reached out with his metal hand and moved Peter’s tassel from the right to the left. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh.” Peter put a hand up and fiddled aimlessly with the tassel. “Right. Thanks.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?” Tony asked, studying Peter’s face. “Are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>nervous?” </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No,” Peter said quickly, defensively. Then, “Yeah. It’s just. Graduation. Y’know?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony gave him A Look. Peter sighed. “I have to give a speech,” he said, “and I’m not the best at public speaking--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“An understatement,” Tony agreed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Aren’t you supposed to be making me feel better?” Peter asked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Have I ever been good at that?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter rolled his eyes. “And then after graduation I’m, what? Just done high school?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s how it typically works.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What if I’m not ready?” Peter asked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“To walk across a stage?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“For everything that comes </span>
  <em>
    <span>after </span>
  </em>
  <span>that,” Peter corrected. “College, life, a job…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony sighed. “Sit down,” he said, motioning to the couch.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But May--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can wait a few more minutes to get pictures.” He leaned against the armchair. “Sit down.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter, reluctantly, sat down. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You jump from the Empire State Building weekly,” Tony said. “I have seen you do the dumbest, most dangerous shit without a second thought.” Peter opened his mouth, but Tony held a hand up. “Pete, you’ve proven you can handle anything. Or, at the very least, you’ve proven that you can take a hit.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter fiddled with the hem of his graduation gown. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If college doesn’t work out, we’ll come up with another plan,” Tony continued. “If you have trouble finding a job you want, there’s always a place for you at Stark.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want a job just because you run the company,” Peter said. “That’s not fair.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “You’ve worked three times as hard as anyone else in that school,” he said. “The time people spent studying, you spent defending the universe. Despite that, if you put your transcript in front of me along with thirty other kids, you’d get the job. You’re a bright kid, Pete. If you want Stark to be a backup plan, fine. If you’d rather go work for Oscorp, I get that, too. I’ll disown you, but I’ll get it.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter squared his jaw. “Okay,” he said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay?” Tony raised an eyebrow. Peter nodded. “Great-- now will you please go </span>
  <em>
    <span>enjoy </span>
  </em>
  <span>your graduation? You’ve worked hard to get here.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter let out a breath. He nodded again. “Yeah,” he breathed. He stood. The gown </span>
  <em>
    <span>swished </span>
  </em>
  <span>against the fabric of the couch. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tony put his right hand-- metal, and glinting, and inorganic-- on Peter’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, kid.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter closed his eyes. Grounded himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The ceremony was long, and hot, and boring. Peter sat through the speeches, and bounced his knee, and wondered if there was any way he could add some kind of forcefield to the Spider-Suit. Like Violet from </span>
  <em>
    <span>the Incredibles.</span>
  </em>
  <span> All the names before him were called, and he listed off the periodic table. The names </span>
  <em>
    <span>after </span>
  </em>
  <span>him were called, and his brain played the Cantina music. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then it was over, and they were throwing their caps to the rafters of the gymnasium, and they were dispersing without obligation to each other. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It happened too fast. Peter looked around, searching for a familiar face in the crowd. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ned pulled Peter in by his shoulders. “Road trip,” he said through his grin. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. Invite your boyfriend.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter followed his gaze to Harley. He was kneeling down, leaned in to hear better whatever it was Morgan was saying to him. His cheeks were red from the heat of the gymnasium, some hairs flyaway. There was a sheen on his forehead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s not my--” Peter started uselessly, but Ned had already pulled away to wrap MJ in a hug. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re coming tomorrow, right?” MJ asked when she caught Peter’s eye over Ned’s shoulder. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I-- uh, yeah I’ll be there,” Peter said. “I just heard.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Right, sorry. We planned it in the classroom.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And, right. Their last names were close enough together. They’d waited together before walking into the auditorium. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And, apparently, they’d planned a final teenage adventure while he was in there. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’d gotten closer since coming back. Since Peter had started splitting so much of his time to stay in Tennessee. It stung a little bit. He pushed it down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’ve started working on a playlist already,” Ned said. “We figured you can add your picks in the morning?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Our first destination is the Hell is Real sign,” MJ added. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ohio?” Peter raised his eyebrow. “That’s the only thing there.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Football Hall of Fame is in Canton,” Ned said. “Also, I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is there, too.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mostly we’re going for the Hell is Real sign,” MJ said. “After that, we can see where we wanna go. I have nearly two weeks off of work, and Ned is still waiting to hear on that internship, so… Are you listening?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter was looking around. He was trying to find Happy, but his gaze caught on someone else. Flash. Alone. In the middle of a crowd. If his family was there, he wasn’t with them. He didn’t seem to be searching for them, either, because he just looked blankly at the people gathering around him. He stood surrounded by grounded caps. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You guys should invite Flash,” Peter said, turning his attention back to them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Their laughter died off. “What?” MJ asked. She tilted her head, eyes narrowed against the sun.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He doesn’t have many friends,” Peter said. “You should see if he wants to come.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He doesn’t have many friends because he’s a dick,” MJ pointed out. She looked over at him, though, and frowned. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure, Peter?” Ned asked. “He’s Kind of been the worst to you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Invite him,” Peter said again. “If he doesn’t want to come, he doesn’t have to.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m more worried that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>will </span>
  </em>
  <span>want to come,” Ned said under his breath. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, I’m gonna go--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’ll see you at Brad’s,” MJ said, patting Peter on the back. “We have to go find our families anyway.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“See ya,” Peter agreed, and he watched where they had been a few beats after they disappeared into the throngs of people.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Peter!” He heard Harley yelling through the crowd. Harley’s hands were cupped around his mouth, Morgan was on his shoulders. When he caught Peter’s eye, he waved. Peter made his way over.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Before he reached Harley, Peter was scooped up in a hug. May’s hair clung to his sweaty face, her forehead knocked his cap to the side. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m so proud of you!” she half-shouted into his ear. She rocked him, and he had to wrap an arm around her shoulder to keep his balance. Peter laughed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alright, alright!” He said, but he didn’t move to pull away from her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She held him an arms-length away, meticulously straightening the cap she’d upended. She searched his face, and Peter pointedly avoided looking at the tears that were welling in her eyes. “Oh,” she said softly, “Ben would be so proud. You know that?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter looked past her. Tony and Pepper were standing back, waiting their turn. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “I know.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She looked back and grinned. “Whoops,” she muttered. “Guess I’m hogging you.” She pulled him in for another hug before stepping aside.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t even fall,” Tony said. He held out his metal arm. Peter stared at it, a moment’s hesitation, then reached out to shake. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Things worked out fine,” Peter agreed with a nod. “You were right.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I always am.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You two are weird,” Pepper said. She wrapped Peter into a hug. “Now I’m even closer to exploiting your brain for money,” she said into his hair, and Peter laughed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“There’s not much up there,” he said regretfully. “But do with it what you will.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re coming back to the house to shower and get changed, right?” Pepper asked. “We’re seeing you before the party?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure are,” Peter agreed. “Harley’s my ride.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure I’m invited?” Harley asked. From her vantage, Morgan had no trouble leaning down and stealing the cap off of Peter’s head. It wouldn’t stay on her own-- it was far too large-- but she held it in place and giggled.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No one will even notice,” Peter assured him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Parking was harder to find than Peter had expected. They ended up three streets over, which was nearly a mile in suburbia. Almost immediately, they fell into step with a group of Peter’s classmates. People he knew-of-but-didn’t-know. They talked college— agonized over it. They joked about teachers they’d left behind. People they’d miss. The block of cheese one kid had (accidentally?) left in his locker. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter and Harley left them at the entrance. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Peter said just before they stepped into the house. He could feel the bass in the ground. There weren’t many people here yet, and it was still light out. He put a hand on Harley’s elbow. “Can I ask you something?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley followed him to the side, just to the left of the crowd heading in through the front door. The back of Peter’s knees hit the porch swing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to grab you before the party started,” Peter said. He glanced in through the window. The party already </span>
  <em>
    <span>had </span>
  </em>
  <span>started. People were grouped, tightly, in the living room. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s good,” Harley said. “I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about something.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter’s head tilted almost imperceptibly. “Oh,” Peter said. “Did you wanna--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley shook his head. “No,” he said on the wings of a breath. “You go ahead.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’re leaving on a roadtrip tomorrow morning,” Peter said, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket. “Ned, MJ, and I. Also, maybe Flash, but I haven’t gotten confirmation on that yet.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley raised an eyebrow. “Flash?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m trying a new thing,” Peter said, and Harley scoffed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I was wondering if you wanted to come,” Peter said. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The surprise crossed Harley’s face in inches. His eyes widened just slightly, forehead wrinkled, lips parted. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to say yes,” Peter said quickly. “I know it’s last minute, and you don’t really know them, but MJ and Ned would really like to know you better, and I’m not sure how much time we’ll get to spend together once I’m at school, so--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sounds fun,” Harley said, and Peter could have melted from the way Harley smiled at him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?” Peter grinned.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Harley agreed. “Why not?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter had never considered him one for spontaneity. He added a piece of glass-- yellow-- to the window of Harley he was constructing in his brain. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter barked out a laugh. “Great! We’ll come get you, then. Or-- I guess you could stay with me tonight? But I guess all your stuff is at the lake house.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’ll have to come get me,” Harley said. “My bag and all’s at Tony’s.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter nodded, enthusiastic. “Okay, fine. No problem. We’ll come get you, then.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Parker! We survived!” The smile looked uncharacteristic on Flash’s face-- but that could have been because Peter had last seen him looking dejected in the middle of a crowd. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Mostly!” Peter half-cheered back. He managed a weak fist-pump. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You coming in?” Flash’s gaze flickered to Harley. He waved. “Hey.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley nodded. “Hey.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Harley, this is Flash. Flash, this is Harley.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They shook hands. “You graduate with us?” Flash asked, eyes narrowed, head quirked.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley shook his head. “I’m just a friend of Peter’s.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We work together,” Peter explained.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley opened his mouth, then closed it. He shifted his eyes to the space between them, away from Peter’s face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You work for Stark?” Flash asked him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Something like that.” The way Harley cleared his throat after saying it made the hair on the back of Peter’s neck stand straight. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Flash shrugged. “You guys coming in, or…?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’ll be in in a minute,” Peter said. “Harley wanted to talk to me about something.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley shook his head. “It can wait,” he said with a wave of his hand. Shadows from tree leaves dappled his face like freckles, danced a waltz across his cheeks. It took Peter a second to register what he’d said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peter blinked at him. “Are you sure? I can--”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harley put an arm around his shoulders and turned him toward the open front door. “It can wait,” he repeated, and the hair settled. “Let’s go celebrate your graduation.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>okay okay okay so I KNOW Peter and Harley didn't get together yet... I have a Whole Plan for that, but I didn't want to do too much in this story so there's going to be a sequel. I was going to post the first chapter at the same time as this chapter, but I'm impatient and really excited to post this chapter. I'm equally excited for the sequel, though, because I have Big Things planned, so I'll be posting that as soon as it's finished!</p><p>As always, please feel free to come talk to me on Tumblr @dredfulhapiness I'm always down to talk headcanons, take fic requests, or anything else!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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